Reviewing Transcutaneous Power Supplies for High Power Implantable Heart Pumps

Abstract

This paper focuses on incorporating Transcutaneous Energy Transfer System (TETs) for medical implants which requires very high power, especially Total Artificial Heart (TAH) and Left Ventricular Assistant Devices (LVADs). These implants consume high power in the range 3 to 30W. So, these are conventionally powered using a percutaneous lead. This lead passes through the abdominal skin of a patient to connect to an external power supply. This skin area around the lead represents a source of potential infections and requires frequent treatment and surgery for replacing the leads. TET system can deliver power wirelessly and is widely in use for low power medical implants. Therefore, it gained immense interest to determine its suitability for high power implants. Thus, this paper presented a review of various commercial TAHs and LVADs and their power requirements. From the review, for high power implants, TET needs to overcome the limitations of the temperature variation of coils, impedance mismatch, and discontinuity in required power delivery. In the end, directions for future work are provided to fill these voids and to develop a TET system suitable for high power TAHs and LVADs.