Reliable gas exchange and blood circulation during surgery Cardiotomy reservoir

The majority of all heart surgeries are performed on the open heart. These operations place high demands on the staff, the medical material and the devices. Because the heart has to stop while the heart surgeons operate on it. But of course, the gas exchange in the lungs and the bloodstream must continue to run reliably during this time.

The machines which perform this task are known as heart-lung machines or HLMs. A crucial part of the HLM is the cardiotomy reservoir, which is upstream of the artificial lung ­ the oxygenerator. In the resting state, the human heart usually beats about 60 times per minute, transporting 60 ml to 90 ml of blood per heartbeat. That is about 300 litres of blood per hour which the HLM has to transport when it takes over the work of the heart and lungs.

It is important to prevent haemolysis when doing this – a mechanical overload which can damage the gas-carrying red blood cells, causing them to lose their function. The cardiotomy reservoir must therefore function both robustly and precisely over many hours and for many operations. This also involves some major challenges during the manufacturing and testing process, because as well as producing a high-quality product, the effort and the costs must also remain within the framework of the available resources.

This is precisely what we have achieved with this innovative and customer-oriented all-inclusive solution:

High-quality cardiotomy reservoirs with minimal use of resources thanks to modern plastic technology and an automatic production cell

We did not only supply the injection moulding tools, but also the injection moulding machine and the peripherals, including a clean room cell that is specially designed for the special on-site requirements. Our customer's employees also took part in the testing and qualification of the reservoirs at the Otto Klumpp site in order to guarantee that there would be a smooth start to production.

Thanks to our filter manufacturing expertise, as well as fulfilling complex tasks such as manufacturing the filigree mould cores of the riser tube or the filter insert, which provides a maximum filtration surface and the best flow conditions, we succeeded in developing a fully automatic production cell. This made it possible for our customer to avoid complex and cost-intensive assembly, and reliably produce high-quality cardiotomy reservoirs to a high quality standard.