Chronic heparin anticoagulant in dogs by continuous infusion with a totally implantable pump.

The ability of our implantable pump to provide continuous long-term drug infusion in abulatory animals has been demonstrated. Chronic heparinization has been achieved in the dog for 6 mos. Anticipated complications, hemorrhage and osteoporosis occurred, but not to a prohibitive degree. The successful performance of the pump in these animal studies has led us to plan a clinical trial using the pump for heparin anticoagulation in patients and to investigate employment of the pump in cancer chemotherapy, insulin for the treatment of diabetes, and other purposes.