Blood pump

Abstract

This invention relates to an intravascular blood pump, comprising a pumping device with a pump section and a drive section, wherein the pump section comprises a pump casing having a primary blood flow inlet and a primary blood flow outlet hydraulically connected by a primary passage and the drive section comprises a stator and a rotor rotatable about an axis of rotation and configured to rotate a primary impeller, the primary impeller being configured to convey a primary blood flow from the primary blood flow inlet to the primary blood flow outlet along the primary passage, the drive section further comprises an ancillary blood flow inlet and an ancillary blood flow outlet hydraulically connected by an ancillary passage extending through an axial gap between the rotor and the stator and an ancillary impeller arranged at a drive section end (DSE) of the rotor and rotatable about the axis of rotation along with the rotor, the ancillary impeller comprising one or more ancillary impeller vanes configured to convey an ancillary blood flow (ABF) from the ancillary blood flow inlet to the ancillary blood flow outlet along the ancillary passage in a direction toward a pump section end (PSE) of the pumping device, and the rotor is mounted in a blood-purged radial sliding rotor bearing with an inner rotor bearing surface and an outer rotor bearing surface, and the ancillary impeller forms the inner rotor bearing surface of the radial sliding rotor bearing.