Specialized Aortic Cannulas

Two new aortic cannulas have been developed to either decrease emboli to the brain or preferentially cool the blood supply to the brain, thus attenuating the consequences of an ischemic insult. The Emboli-X device can be deployed through a sideport in the aortic cannula and contains a 150-µm filter. The Caordean-Cobra aortic cannula has two lumens that allow differential cooling and a flexible balloon shield that diverts particulate embolic material away from the great vessels. Both these devices are currently under investigation.