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Completely Artificial Hearts Approved

Posted by michael on from the perfect-valentine's-day-gift dept.

DarrylM writes: "From CBC's web page: 'The first people to have completely artificial hearts could be walking around by July . . . The new artificial hearts fit right into the chest cavity, with a battery pack positioned in the recipient's thorax. The designers said they wanted patients to show no external sign they had an artificial heart.'" Hmmm. I thought the Jarvik-7 was the first artificial heart...

3 of 20 comments (clear)

  1. Jarvik 7 was First! by Schwarzchild · · Score: 4

    Yeah the Jarvik was the first completely artificial heart to be used by a human, but unfortunately Barney Clark did not survive. I understand that they tried using the Jarvik 7 a few more times after that but the patients kept dying after a few months. They finally gave up on that design and resorted to a different concept, that of, making helper pumps. These are not replacements for the heart. They are implanted next to the heart and help the diseased heart to pump. Apparently, they can help the diseased heart to become more healthy by relieving the amount of work that has to be done. I think Dr. Jarvik is now working on these "helper pumps". It seemed that the completely artificial heart was technically infeasible at this time but who knows how successful this new artificial heart might be?

    --

    "sweet dreams are made of this..."

    1. Re:Jarvik 7 was First! by TWX_the_Linux_Zealot · · Score: 3

      What about Jarviks one through six?

      "Titanic was 3hr and 17min long. They could have lost 3hr and 17min from that."

      --

      IBM had PL/1, with syntax worse than JOSS,
      And everywhere the language went, it was a total loss...
  2. battery life by AndyChrist · · Score: 3

    1 and a half HOURS?

    Gee, you could have a race between your heart and your notebook, see which runs out of juice first.