From 3D-printed cars to 3D-printed shoes, additive manufacturing technology is going to revolutionize the manufacturing sector. 3D printers have a great role to play in the health care sector too. The latest addition to the applications of 3D printing is Hemosop, the blood recycling machine.
Hemosep is a one-of-a-kind life saving machine that recovers blood lost or spilled during major trauma and open-heart surgeries, recycling the blood and allowing for its quick transfusion back into the patient. Stratasys in partnership with British company Brightwake (Advancis Medical) will make the production of this religiously ethical blood collector machine, much cheaper.
Hemosep’s blood recycling technology based on Autotransfusion process that reduces the need for donor blood in a surgery and eliminates any possible complications tied to transfusion reactions, could be a real life-saver in many situations. This machine helps religious individuals in particular who refuse donor blood greatly.
The Hemosep device, concentrates blood by removing the fluid component of whole blood, the plasma, from a pooled volume of blood salvaged during, or at the end of high blood loss surgery. The technique for removing the plasma from the blood product, leading to concentration of the cellular components, is fairly simple but involves a number of critical steps and controls.
The Hemosep device consists of:
- The Hemosep bag
- Hemosep Shaker Unit
- A blood collection bag for the collection of processed blood
- Intraoperative pump, suction and blood reservoir
The people at Brightwake turned to the Stratasys Dimension 1200es 3D printer to create models of some of the device’s central parts, like the filtration and cooling systems. Brightwake’s use of the Stratasys 3D printer saved the company time and cut its prototyping costs by 96 percent, saving about £1000 per machine. This is definitely the future of medical device manufacturing.