The Role of Centrifugal Flow Devices in Coronary Filling

The intraortic balloon pump sits in the aorta and it inflates during diastole to aid coronary filling. It deflates during systole to try to augment the output of the heart by decreasing the afterload suddenly. We talked about the smaller impeller devices, which actually suck blood out of the left ventricle and pump it in to the ascending aorta. So you're kind of just replacing the function of the left heart or augmenting thefunction of the leftHeart. And there may be some others that our cardiac surgeons are thinking about as well.