A patient on the brink of death has received the worlds first self-contained artificial hearta battery-powered device about the size of a softball that runs without the need for wires, tubes or hoses sticking out of the chest.
Two surgeons from the University of Louisville implanted the titanium and plastic pump during a sever-hour operation at Jewish Hospital Monday. The hospital said the patient was awake and responsive Tuesday and resting comfortably. It refused to release personal details.
The patient had been expected to die within a month without the operation, and doctors said they expected the artificial heart to extend the persons life by only a month. But the device is considered a major step toward improving the patients quality of life.
The new pump, called AbioCor, is also a technological leap from the mechanical hearts used in the 1980s, which were attached by wires and tubes to bulky machinery outside the body. The most famous of those, the Jarvic-7, used air as a pumping device and was attached to an apparatus about the size of a washing machine.
I think its potentially a major step forward in the artificial heart development, said Dr. David Faxon, president of the American heart Association. However, he said the dream of an implantable, permanent artificial heart is not yet a reality: This is obviously an experimental device whose long-term success has to be demonstrated. Only about half of the 4,200 Americans on a waiting list for donor hearts received them last year, and most of the rest died.
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