Improved Efficiency Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenators

Extracorporeal life support (ECLS) is used for newborn infants with respiratory failure. Improvedlong term ECLS efficiency is desirable and would allow broader (children/adults/ cardiac support) andsafer use. Systems are based on microporous (hollow fiber) membranes or silicon non-porousmembranes. Microporous membranes have adequate initial performance but after 2-6 hours "plasmaleakage" clogs the pores and gas transport drops significantly. Silicone membranes are more stable butgas permeabilities are much lower. Also silicone is not workable. This leads to configurations withhigher priming volume and poor blood side flow and associated poor gas transport. We will developnovel high permeability perfluoropolymers into hollow fiber (HF) membranes with excellent oxygen andcarbon dioxide transport. Using thin film fabrication techniques demonstrated on related polymers wewill make HF modules with stable carbon dioxide and oxygen fluxes 20 times higher than silicone andsignificantly higher than demonstrated in non-porous ECLS operation. Phase I will demonstrate our abilityto fabricate high flux hollow fibers and project extracorporeal membrane oxygenator (ECMO)performance. In Phase II we will optimize performance, make larger HF modules, perform ECLS tests,and evaluate biocompatibility.