In-Line Microwave Warmer for Blood and Intravenous Fluids.

Microwave technology has been used to develop a system capable of providing fast, in line warming of blood or intravenous IV fluids. Key advantages of this system over conventional heat exchangers are the elimination of a water bath, short path length disposable cartridge consists of a mere 18 inch length if IV tubing and instantaneous fluid heating no warmup time. An engineering model has been successfully built and tested. It consists of four main components 1 Microwave Energy Source, continuously variable 2 Heating Chamber with Disposable Cartridge 3 Microwave Radiometer for temperature measurement and 4 Microcomputer Feedback Control. The single most important technical achievement has been the integration of these major components into a functional closed-loop feedback control system. To determine the efficacy of the rapid, in line warming of blood and IV fluids by this system, in-vivo tests using baboons were conducted using a technique of radio labelling blood components prior to microwave warming. Results show no significant changes in blood component longevity between samples that were warmed with microwave energy versus control samples. In addition in-vitro tests using blood-bank blood were performed and again biochemistry and hematologic analysis showed no significant changes in blood components of microwave warmed blood versus control samples.