Measurements of blood saturation inside a ventricular assist device

Information about the level how well arterial blood is saturated with oxygen, i.e. the overall patient saturation, in particular a patient with a ventricular assist device (VAD) inoculated, is very important for efficient and dependable course of blood circulation support. The paper presents the method for measurement of blood saturation with oxygen that is carried out with use of a commercially available pulse oximetric sensor upon necessary modifications and installed directly on a outflow connector of the VAD. Operability of the presented solution has been verified by experiments on a flow control test bench with use of animal blood. The final validation of the measuring circuit was carried out during experiments with an animal. The completed experiments demonstrated that both the blood saturation with oxygen as well as artificial pulse rate can be measured with accuracy. Unfortunately, similar measurements for venous blood proved infeasible.