Artificial lung - Research Paper Example

The respiratory system is a complex yet beautiful system to behold. The breathing that the body does cannot take place without the respiratory system. This system consists of the nose, throat, voice box, wind pipe and the lungs. “We live because we breathe. Inhaled breath brings life sustaining oxygen into our body. Oxygen is the fuel that makes our body function. Every minute we breathe in about 13 pints of air. Our lungs are essentially 2500 km of airways, through which oxygen is delivered to all parts of the body from the lungs, and carbon dioxide exhaled from the lungs is sent out into the atmosphere” (Colon, San Miguel and Zayas, 2004).

“With this in mind, the scientists have developed devices that can help or replace the natural lung. These devices help our respiratory system during an operation or afterwards, but can only be used for a recuperation time” (Colon, San Miguel and Zayas, 2004). “People who need a lung-transplant can only wait and hope that a donor organ will materialize in time. But all too often, time runs out. In response to the United States' critical shortage of donor organs, researchers have been racing to develop artificial organs that would serve as a "bridge" to transplantation.

One such device is the Bio Lung, which may be tested in people soon” (Downs, 2011). This device is called, the artificial lung. The only purpose of the artificial lung is to make sure that the blood has oxygen. This device is not the same as the heart-lung machine, because this one is placed inside the body and it is supposed to replace the work of the natural lungs for a long duration of time. In contrast, the heart-lung machine is outside the body and it is used for short periods, only when needed.

According to Marcus (2008), “Early artificial-breathing devices include the tank respirator, or "iron lung," introduced in the late 1920s and known for its role in treating polio victims. Current treatment for lung failure is to hook patients up to an artificial respirator. It is costly, immobile and requires intubation, a process that can cause infection, says John Conte, a heart-and-lung transplant surgeon and associate professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. ‘You don't want to take a patient who's been flat on his back, with poor muscles and infection at the IV site, and do a transplant.

That's a recipe for disaster.’ Artificial lungs are small and portable, however, and are designed to allow patients to remain mobile and therefore stronger for surgery.” How the Artificial Lung Works With lungs that are healthy, the vessels that carry blood take in the oxygen that has been pumped from the heart, and after that, they let go of carbon dioxide by breathing out. “The idea was to develop a new way to study the lung that would be useful in drug development and might serve as a replacement for animal studies.

The device, about the size of a pea, mimics the function of air sacs called alveoli, which transfer oxygen through a thin membrane from the lung to the blood. The device has three parts -- lung cells, a permeable membrane and tiny blood vessel or capillary cells” (Steenhuysen, 2010). According to Downs (2011), “The system now used in hospitals is known as ECMO, or extracorporeal membrane oxygenation. ECMO machines take over the