Augmented venous return allows the perfusionist to use a venous line having a smaller inner diameter thereby reducing prime volume and allows the surgeon to use a smaller venous cannula resulting in easier insertion, better surgical view and a smaller surgical incision. The combination of the venous reservoir and cardiotomy reservoir reduces unit costs, and simplifies and reduces setup time. Venous bags have been shown to be clinically safer than hard shall reservoirs yet there is no a soft shell venous reservoir combined with a cardiotomy reservoir (V/C) to form a single unit. We propose to bring to the clinical market a V/C that would also provide vacuum-assisted venous drainage. The proposed system would significantly improve both the safety and operability of present cardiopulmonary bypass procedures at reduced cost.
