Balloon Circulatory System

Balloon catheter based circulatory measurement system

Introduction

In hospitals, doctors use many devices to help them cure their patients from various health problems. These are called Medical Devices. Medical devices help doctors do many things, ranging from diagnostics, therapy, to life support. Medical devices that are used to diagnose a patient are very important as they can help the doctor to understand and thus cure the patient’s problem. Medical devices that help with diagnostics can be as simple as a thermometer or can be as complex as an ultrasound scan. This report will be about a class III medical device, the pulmonary artery catheter. See Figure 1. Figure 1: A Swan-Ganz catheter

Brief History

The pulmonary artery catheter, also

The Swan-Ganz catheter has also been shown as a potential device for its explicit usage of applying drugs directly to the heart of the patient. The device is an accurate hemodynamic monitoring system. In medicine, this device is commonly used to detect mostly for cardiac and respiratory problems. The balloon of the catheter acts as a navigator through the blood vessels and into the heart. The Pulmonary Distal Lumen which is connected to the inflated balloon is wedged in between the blood vessels to detect the atrial pressure. The thermistor detects the change in blood temperature in the patient to measure the cardiac output. The proximal injectate port is to check for the right atrial or central venous pressure. The proximal infusion port is able to administer drugs directly to the heart or the blood vessels. All the ports are connected either to a monitor to see the cardiac readings or a base to provide drugs or

The Swan-Ganz Catheter is often used in cases such as in myocardial infarction, the assessment of heart diseases, respiratory distress, and many others. In the event of a myocardial infarction, more commonly known as a heart attack, the Swan-Ganz catheter can accurately diagnose the complications in the human body that caused the heart attack. The catheter is normally inserted via a large vein, such as the internal jugular, subclavian or femoral veins. The catheter is then moved to the right atrium of the heart, the right ventricle and finally into the pulmonary artery. The movement of the catheter is monitored usually by the pressure readings from the catheter tip or with a medical imaging device. The device can be also used to detect and observe the changes drugs have on the heart after the patient suffered from heart