CPPF for cardiac surgery with Stimag

Stimag has been involved in the development lead by Haermonics of a device that supports cardiac surgery for the AMC in Amsterdam. On the display of the device the weights of administered and drained liquids are shown. The new breakthrough technology can reduce post-operative blood loss by 30% and is called CPPF:
Continuous Postoperative Pericardial Flushing.

New equipment necessary

The current technology of post-operative care in cardiac surgery creates an unnecessary high risk of excessive bleeding. A major cause of this is the use of imperfect and incorrect wound exudate expulsions. That made it necessary to develop a new post-operative device.

The Haermonics technology administers a heated liquid solution in the pericardial cavity after an operation via controlled infusion, while the system controls the blood loss. The continuous rinse results in a lower viscosity mixture. This prevents thoracic catheters to clog and stimulates removal of blood clots from the pericardial cavity. Due to this technique CPPF is a step ahead of the current devices for cardiac surgery and wound exudate expulsions.

The development of CPPF

It often happens that blood becomes thin after cardiac surgery. This is due to several factors, for example because the blood has passed through a machine for a couple of hours. The blood must be drained through a wound drain. This is done since the beginning of the cardiac surgery and has never changed. A couple of drains are used to control the blood loss, aiming to stop the bleeding after a couple of hours. When this doesn’t happen the wound needs to be inspected, increasing the risk of complications. Through the clinical observation of these problems the idea for a new device was born.

Measurements with the S-shaped force transducers

With the new device the wound is rinsed from the completion of the surgery up to 12 hours after the operation. The device is developed to closely monitor the flushing process. Several measurements are performed in order to make decisions about wound bleeding. These measurements are done by the S-shaped load cells. The results are shown on the displays. The S-shaped transducers including displays are supplied by Stimag.

Do you want to know more about the CPPF device and S-shaped load cells?
Please feel free to contact us.