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New Type Of Artificial Lung Created
cylonlover writes "Researchers have created an artificial lung that uses air as a ventilating gas instead of pure oxygen — as is the case with current man-made lungs, which require heavy tanks of oxygen that limit their portability. The prototype device was built following the natural lung's design and tiny dimensions and the researchers say it has reached efficiencies akin to the genuine organ. With a volume roughly the same as a human lung, the device could be implanted into a person and even be driven by the heart."
What it means is a person with cystic fibrosis(and other diseases as well of course), such as my daughter who may have to have a lung transplant in the future, has fighting chance to continue to live a somewhat normal life with continued technological/scientific progress in this field. This makes me happy!
More to the point, how does one clean one of these things? Our lungs are constantly filtering out crap via mucous membrane and cilia to flush it out from the organ. Unless these things are designed to be flushed out with water through some sort of inlet/outlet hose design, I'm afraid they will have to be made external for ease of maintenance.
Life is not for the lazy.