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Bionic Human: 1st Fully Implanted Human Heart
InnerCityCaching writes "Doctors at the University of Louisville have removed a patients heart and replaced it with an artificial pump that has no wires to the outside world. One of five FDA approved test implants, neither the hospital nor Abiomed Inc., would confirm or deny the surgery." This is bigger news than it sounds - the older artificial hearts had massive battery and battery needs, while this heart is charged by placing coils on the skin. As we get closer to creating more artificial body parts, the issues of batteries, much like powering laptops for longer times become more critical and the solutions become more intrinsically interesting. Too bad they can't use code morphing to make better use of battery life. *grin*
Before this, the right-wing wackos said that Hillary was in charge and Bill wasn't.
The new heart also comes with:
* a cradle for easy computer interface. Download MP3s and more!
* free heart charger for the car. Plugs into your cigarrete lighter
* alarm clock. Wake up to the sound of speeding heart.
* snooze button. Impress your friends at the party how you can stop your heart!
* embedded webserver. Check your heart rythm online!
* and more!
I remember an atomic battery works like this; radiation from radioactive material is shined on a phosphor that converts it to light and then a solar cell is used to generate the electric power.
The particle emission varieties use the particles emitted from the radioactive decay to ionoize a gas, which is then discharged through electrodes. Another variation uses the particles to push electrons across a PN junction in a semiconductor. (Essentially, strapping a solar cell onto a block of radioactive material.)
== The patient has had to be tied to a console or
e ws id%5F1410000/1410705.stm
== power source, electrical or air, with no more
== than brief respites of untethered activity.
That turns out not to be the case.
There is this guy:
http://news6.thdo.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/health/n
The Jarvik 2000 rocks.
My dad is recovering in St Louis after having a ventrical assist heart pump installed. He's 70 years old, otherwise in good health, but is old enough to not be a candidate for a new heart transplate.
Essentially these new types of technologies are the only hope for a lot of people in heart failure.
If I remember correctly his pump(and this new artifical heart probably uses the same power) has an internal 1 hour battery, runs off of external 4 hour worn battery packs, and plugs into an AC outlet unit that can hold a 12 hour charge.
And while a 4 hour "timer" for being away from home may not sound like much, it can mean a 500% improvement in the quality of life for most of these people whose low heart output would otherwise restrict them to the home(and eventually bed).
This is all new territory, no one really knows the long term effects this tech will have(for example my dad no longer has a pulse, his blood flows in a steady stream from the pump and no one knows if this will mess with the body or the mind). These guys are the ultimate Beta testers.
Some pacemakers had a nuclear battery. I am not sure exactly whst types but this link talks about nuclear pacemakers being just thrown in the trash by funeral homes. Couldn't you gang up 2-3 of these and generate enough power? that way battery life is no longer an issue (well except for every 5-10 years for a fuel rod replacement !)
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Last week PBS repeated its show about the artificial heart industry.
Except most of their technology was heart-assist.
The heart muscle stays in, even if it doesn't do
much.
The showed one patient waiting for a transplant
who had about a dozen spare batteries in reserve.
There are "Semi-portable" meaning you can go away
from the main console for a few hours at a time.
But you need to sleep near it for maximum safety.
Since most of this nuclear material was gotten from the environment anyways, I don't see the harm. Radioactive materials are as naturally occuring as other materials.
Hey, don't be knockin' Dick Cheney - without him, nothing would stand between W and the presidency :)
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
Abiomed wants to observe a ''quiet period'' with no media comment so the patient can recover with his or her family in private, and so the surgical team can devote all its energy to the operation and patient care, Ed Berger, an Abiomed spokesman, has said over the past several months.
Stressing again that he was not confirming or denying that the implant had taken place, Berger said yesterday that Abiomed and the surgical team had agreed to comment only when they were sure they could ''meet the demands of the press without compromising patient care.''
Whilst this development in heart surgey is exciting, I figure it'd be rather bizarre, and possibly very counter-productive, for the poor patient to become the subject of a (possibly) intrustive press campaign, whilst they battles with their recovery.
ooooooh! What does this button do? - DeeDee, Dexters Lab.
Tried to make an "Uncle Ben's Rice Bowl" for lunch. After I hit the START button on the microwave, I woke up under a large dent in the wall across the kitchen. Do I need a new Windows?
--
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
I'd laugh except it just wasn't that funny.
Good comedy consists of wit, irony and most importantly, delivery. Neither of these does your post have.
Try coming down off that 6-can Mt Dew high before you hit the 'Submit' button.
~dlb
That's exactly what I thought when I read this. How do they ensure a reliable power supply (i.e. uptime...) over some years? There won't be much time left in the case of a sudden failure.
God, root, what is difference? - Pitr
Am I the only one who thinks that tossing active nuclear material, regardless of how decayed, in the trash is not the best thing for the environment? Even if it goes into the biohazard waste to be incenerated, that's not much better.
-Bill
How can doctors do this to heart patients. Charging the heart's battery with a coil. Don't they know that electro-magnetic radiation causes cancer?! Or is that only when it is produce by big, powerful corporations or forced upon us through cell phones?
I get so confused sometimes.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Article was in the dead tree version... I think this link will do the trick:
1 07 /www.msnbc.com/news/983460.gif
/same/ technology, but, it is related.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/588549.asp
Picture (probably will not work, but, it's duplicated in the above link):
http://a799.ms.akamai.net/3/799/388/1ef1542396c
I hadn't gotten the impression, from the report, that it was ready for human use. I remember reading it had to be tested and was years away from approval. Thus, it's probably not the
I was checking up on CNN where one of the company reps had this to say, "One of the key issues as a population that we have to address is what are we willing to pay for these new technologies," explained Oz. "I think that we should expect to spend about $70,000 per year to keep someone alive. Not twice that, but also not half that. If we have that rational expectation and insist on getting that quality for our money, I think we'll be happy." Maybe it's me, but keeping the cost of saving someones life at 70,000 a year seems a bit steep, especially when the more of these devices one produces the cheaper it should become (see computer prices 1981 - 2001). I'm thinking if this thinbg flies, Abicor is going to keep it's prices artifically high. That my friends is crap.
3000 dead over past 2 years, still no free Palestinians, still
For pete's sake. He spends tens of thousands of dollars on a new heart, and then doesn't bother to buy a power supply that you can plug into the wall.
For my little electric car I take my battery charger everywhere. If I had a heart like this, I'd carry one, then I'd also have an AC>DC converter so I could be plugged in the wall directly.
THEN I'd have a solar charger in the car, AND a charging recepticle in the dash.
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
"had the impression (uh, no quotes, sorry) that one of the primary problems was not simply pumping blood, but pumping the right amount of blood.
>A natural heart adjusts depending on the needs of the body - for an artificial heart, is this a big issue? Does anyone know how it is addressed, in general, and in this specific case?"
One of several approaches to this is to use a pneumatic "volume compensation device to allow some variability in the area behind the pump for filling. The body has a series of checks and balances, but for flow regulation it's mostly based on venous return: The arteries can constrict causing the blood pressure to rise in regional or overall (systemic) fashion, but there is precious little that will cause the veins to constrict. While unanticipated venous dilation would cause problems, generally, if the physiology is, overall, intact, this will _not_ happen.
So, what I'm suggesting here is that the flow could well be regulated in several ways. I will have to do some research on the Abiomed device in its current state, but the pump could well have a central aortic pressure sensor and attempt to pump more blood (ie., faster) to maintain a mean pressure; the pump could be triggered to "fire" when a certain fill point in the ventricular chambers is reached, or the pump could be set to a fixed rate and simply pump the available blood at the time it's supposed to pump, little or lots, depending on venous return.
Having been out of the game for a while I'm not sure anymore which of the methods is prevalent, but the first 2, in isolation or combination are physiologically attractive.
Never ascribe to malice that which can adequately be explained by tenure.
Transdermal induction-based power supplies were first successfully introduced about 1985; before that they were bigger, bulkier, damaged the skin, had poor efficiency, and were just plain painful. Still, the amount of power transferrable across the intact skin, without damaging same, isn't likely to be enough to provide much juice for a continuously operating motor. Even at low power settings, the continuous portion of that equation is a battery-draining issue.
Further, batteries have to be non-venting and encased in a bio-neutral container. Last time I looked, that pretty well limited them to nickle-cadmium cells, or sealed, depleted electrolyte lead-acid cells. The lead-acid cells are too heavy for these purposes. The number of NiCd's one can package in an unobtrusive manner, and manage to parallel in a fashion that will provide good current-density, is still small. Further, despite advances in NiCd chemistry, there are still issues with "memory" (dendritic formation within the cells) and cycle life. I anticipate more battery work will ensue, especially if the physiology of this device in humans is borne out (most of the testing has been in calves; the issues of cell morphology and fragility are not identical!), then a device like this will spur significant research in associated fields... because the money AND the good will are there.
Never ascribe to malice that which can adequately be explained by tenure.
I spent a number of years in the articifial heart field while at Texas Heart Institute. It really *IS* big news.
All the artificial heart implants in humans have been tethered implants. The patient has had to be tied to a console or power source, electrical or air, with no more than brief respites of untethered activity. The devices have been harsh on quality of life, and a whole host of physiologic functions. They have not allowed normal interaction with other humans, and those few patients who've ventured outside the walls of the hospital were making brief visits away, not returning to the world.
The Abiomed pump is small enough to reasonably be implanted, and reliable enough to expect it to work well. The centers selected for the initial implants have sufficient experience with animal implantation, AND various human procedures of a more mundane variety, to expect them to be able to manage the patients well, indeed.
We're about 9 years behind where I thought we'd get to with a really viable, implantable heart, mainly because of the costs necessary to support this sort of research. It's long overdue.
I suspect that the 125,000 potential patients Abiomed cited in the article may be an understatement. Doesn't matter. If this allows some patients who were dying waiting for a transplant...or who were deemed not good candidates for the scarce resource of a donated heart... a shot at a good quality life and a time extension, this is WONDERFUL news.
Makes me wish I'd stayed in the game.
Never ascribe to malice that which can adequately be explained by tenure.
I wonder if _they_ could create some kind of charging mechinism from the patient's movements like walking or doing somekind of low impact exersise.
--
microsoft, it's what's for dinner
bq--3b7y4vyll6xi5x2rnrj7q.com
it's a sig, wtf?
With news reports which claim that Sony's PS2 threatens the Department of Defense, I'm glad there's no way someone could say h4x0rs were to blame for a buffer overflow which caused Dick Cheney to have a heart attack or something
Want Root?
Newsweek had an interesting article about the replacement heart and the company that makes it in the June 25th issue. Here is a link to the online article.
I don't know about the sterile argument. It makes sense, but many people have insulin pumps that are hooked up to a tube that enters the body.
From a newsweek article that describes the device, it appeared that the patient wears a battery belt that has one or more camcorder sized batteryies. This apparently was a big step since the previous artificial hearts required huge battery carts. I seem to recall that there was an internal battery so that the external batteries could be replaced easily and for emergency backup.
Patients getting it aren't expected to live more than a few months, let alone years -- after all, initial trials will be conducted in those with 30 days or less expected (w/o AbioCor; they hope to double that for now).
There's an internal battery backup, 'tho, to serve when the external battery (power transmitted via induction coil) is replaced. There's an audible alarm, IIRC, that should sound when power is low. And ISTR that once a patient lasts a few years on it, the heart itself is meant to be replaced periodically.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
At least according to this article in the San Francisco Chronicle.
From 30 to 60 days. Well, maybe some exponential law will apply to this...
Andrew.
they use people as batteries, he says "combined with a form of fusion...."....fusion would provide much more energy than the excess gleaned from humans
Why bother with humans in the first place then?
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Moderator's essentials
As we get closer to creating more artificial body parts, the issues of batteries, much like powering laptops for longer times become more critical and the solutions become more intrinsically interesting.
Well if the robots in The Matrix can power all of their hardware using humans as batteries, can't we harnace enough of that potential energy in one human to power his/her own artificial heart?
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Moderator's essentials
Abiomed wants to observe a ''quiet period'' with no media comment so the patient can recover with his or her family in private, and so the surgical team can devote all its energy to the operation and patient care, Ed Berger, an Abiomed spokesman, has said over the past several months.
Stressing again that he was not confirming or denying that the implant had taken place, Berger said yesterday that Abiomed and the surgical team had agreed to comment only when they were sure they could ''meet the demands of the press without compromising patient care.''
I think that is very noble of the doctors. It's nice to see concerns for the patient come before publicity for the company. It's too bad we don't see this more often, I was getting tired of hearing Dick Cheney's doctors discussing his heart on national television.
It does sound good, but the frequent plugging in does sound a little scary.
You want scary? Try waking up from surgery to find that your heart has been replaced with a baked potatoe? This is my theory, anyway. They use the potatoe to power the pump (no external lines) similar to those potatoe clocks of Mr. Wizzardry...
More
However, Hemos seems to think that it draws it's power from the skin itself, not from a supply through the skin. I guess the article is a little unclear. But does anyone have any less ambiguous info on this?
OK, so that's a gross simplification, but you get the idea. These patients are up for this surgery because otherwise they'd be ruled out, and they're understandably willing to take the risk.
The reference to code morphing got me thinking.
"Hey Dave, hear you got a new heart. How's it feel?"
"Well I'm pretty tired, but that's probably because I'm using spare battery cycls to run SETI@Home."
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
So they were being vage about it before it happened and are being vague after it happened. Whyy all of the secrecy?
I don't know why all the confusion, but CNBC is reporting that the surgery definitely happened. They didn't mention a source for their info.
Well, they have two facts.
Based on these facts, it seems logical to assumethat the operatio DID take place, but nobody want to give out details yet (understandably).
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
So, now we're going to see laptop-battery-powered hearts. Probably only a matter of time before they're implanted inside of patients themselves. My only concern is this: What happens when those lithium-ion batteries EXPLODE? Better make sure to keep Dell and Apple away from this one...
For those who are wondering what this is all about: http://www.hightension.org/frameset.htm?wireless.h tm and http://www.pbs.org/tesla/res/res_art08.html.
--
ALL YOUR KARMA ARE BELONG TO US
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Wow the slashdot editors do actually read posts and fix their spelling errors.
I get annoyed when the battery in my laptop only lasts 2.5 hours. Can you image the stress of never being more the 30 minutes of battery life from dying? Hopefully there is some sort of notice before the battery actually runs out: "Warning, life support will fail in 5 minutes."
Frylock: That's not a toy!
Master Shake: You say that about everything you own. You should own toys. They're fun.
a while back, on dateline NBC or something like that. They had a whole special about artificial hearts and how far they have come. They talked for about a half hour about a guy who recieved a temporary heart which was a very primitive mechanical heart, complete with an external battery and an alarm to alert the patient when the battery got low. For when the battery failed, there was a hand pump bulb for keeping minimal circulation until a fresh battery could be discovered. After that section, they talked about new research on artificial hearts and all of the obsticles which they had to overcome to get them to work well, including the external power supply connection. Which, ended up being a set of coils under the skin which recieve current from a set of coils above the skin. EMF is fun for heart patients. These are very simple devices, I am going to look for a link or more information about the plastic bag hearts.
Spring is here. Don't believe me, look outside!
The problem with Coumadin is simple: It's the only thing out there that works, but is grossly unstable. The pill is frustrating to be on, as one day you don't show bruising, and the next day you're a hemophilliac! With that in mind, your doctor's visits are longer when you have to get another pill because you need an army of pharmacists to pick out a pill that won't intefere (rare) with coumadin. Even caffeine can react with Coumadin, and alchohol is a blood thinner, too; so much for having more than 2 drinks.
Otherwise it's kinda cool being able to have a 22mm valve in ya... but most of the time you don't even notice it.
Karma whorin' since 1999
Q: Congratulations Jean Luc, you're dead!
Magius_AR
P.S. That was the same episode Piccard got lucky ;P (good episode)
Maybe if you'd talked to The Biomed Inc. instead of just A Biomed Inc. you would have been able to confirm that the surgery actually took place!
...I'm sorry. I appologize for that horrible joke. Feel free to mod this down to -2... That is a cool achievement though; it brings us one more step closer to useful implanted information devices.
credo quia absurdum
It also then tells the story of a former recipient (presumably of the older, more invasive type) who accidently placed half-used batteries into his power supply before going to the dentist and had to rush home halfway through a root canal, worried that he'd get held up in traffic and his heart would stop. Why on earth you wouldn't bring a spare set with you, I don't know....
Sean Daugherty "I have walked in Eternity -- and Eternity weeps."
Dick Cheney Sees Wizard, Recieves Heart
On several occasions, when I use a cell phone on my left side, I black out. This is unfortunate as I tend to use my phone when I can't get to a land line- i.e. when I'm driving. Have someone look into that.
So, it's not for me. However, Dick Cheney coud use one of these.
My understanding is that the scoring that determines whether or not a patient is a good candidate for a transplant rates higher for those who have a better chance for long term survivability. It's not exactly how sick they are right now, but a number of factors making them "too sick".
A patient may well be "too sick" to undergo a heart transplant based upon normal scoring methods that take into account others who may also need the organ. But no such restrictions exist when talking about life vs. death and an artificial heart.
Sean.
The heart implanted yesterday has a tiny electric motor in it. An implanted battery that powers the motor is kept charged by a system that uses no wires or tubes. Instead, the battery, which can last about 30 minutes without a recharge, gets its power renewed from a coil that transfers energy through the skin.
If it works as hoped, the AbioCor could keep people alive, alert and mobile for years. They would wear battery packs or plug into an electrical outlet to keep their hearts going.
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
**view of man jumping out of 5 story hospital window, in slow motion, and the sound of...
*chin*chin*chin*chin*chin*
I agree with your second one.
:)
I know soemone who has a plastic heart. They take blood thinners and definitely move slower.
Ideally I'd take the real thing if I could, but in such a situation, I'd just take what I could get
Imagine a beowulf cluster of these! I can get fatter than my wildest dreams!
better yet, what if that motor dies!
.kb
if this motor is made by lets say, Kenwood, like my cd-rom drive, the thing would die in under a year.
Two Wrongs Don't Make A Right-- But They Make Me Feel A Whole Lot Better
One of the big problems with artificial hearts is preventing damage to the blood cells the the pump inflicts on them. The rate of destroying blood cells has to be less that the body's ability to replace them. Mechanical pumps are brutal on blood cells.
Artificial hearts and ED-209 on the same day next to each other. What's next? Detroit constructing "Metro City" and all the police going on strike? :)
So now we can give people 100% fully independent artificial heart transplants, isn't it time we moved on to brains, courage and a portable instantaneous matter transportation device (aka magic red shoes) that will take you anywhere you want to go?
Buckle up Dorothy, cos Kansas is going bye-bye...
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
There's some kind of backup battery inside your body that lasts like 10-15 minutes and beeps if you remove the inducer.
The heart has been tested in a lab to beat for the equivalent of something like 35 years but don't forget your battery!
2)I suppose i'd rather take coumadin the rest of my life (blood thinner to prevent thrombus formation on the valves in the artificial heart) than cyclosporing / OKT3 (anti rejection drugs). But your exercise tolerance and managability defintely wouldn't be as good as the transplanted heart because it wouldn't be able to respond to inotropes/beta blockers/ace inhibitors/calcium channel blockers.
They make the patient sign a contract that forbids them from travelling to California.
The need for external connections to a power supply was only one impediment to the development of an artificial heart. The other important one was that, for some reason, plastic tends to promote the formation of blood clots, so before long the patient would die of a stroke.
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
Is it just me or is the name of the company Abiomed suspiciously close to Aibo... aaahhh! Its a Sony plot to change us all into bionic worker robots!
I had the impression (uh, no quotes, sorry) that one of the primary problems was not simply pumping blood, but pumping the right amount of blood. A natural heart adjusts depending on the needs of the body - for an artificial heart, is this a big issue? Does anyone know how it is addressed, in general, and in this specific case?
yes, we have no bananas
Sorry, couldn't resisit. :)
---
"The universe is a womb for the genesis of gods."
The implant was confirmed by a source close to the process, who declined to be identified.
... did they do it, or not?
The article is full of stuff like this.
What I want to know is
I'll think of a funny sig later on
Didnt the Matrix show that humans could be batteries?
If they don't deny, it's true!
Find nice cocktail recipes @ www.spitzy.net
Wonder how many seconds of sex the batteries can take... And it also would be pretty bad if during the act you "uh oh... hold that position.. I just got to change my batteries" ..
Coming to think of the Duracell bunny, but that is anothre story...
Find nice cocktail recipes @ www.spitzy.net
It only has a 30min battery.. this would suck that means they would have to recharge 48 times a day. and what would they do if the heart happened to stop working? i think the person would be royally fucked. While i realise they are only testing it on people who have very little time left here, it culd either be lengthend or shortened by this device. I'm all for the exploration into finding alternative to relying on transplants but having to recharge every 30mins wont allow them to lead a normal life.
Does the heart come with a car charger?
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"There is a thin line between genius and insanity and I can't walk straight"
Great, now someone is going to go patent the battery that can power both your laptop and your heart. You need to stop giving ideas to these people!
By the way, why can't you have code morphing for human hearts?
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The manufacturer claims that this heart is capable of generating heartbeats on the order of 60 to 140 beats per minute, which is well within the range for sustaining life...
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
I dunno, I'd be very afraid of having the power run out at the wrong time...
http://www.themeparks.ie
Woo hoo! Everyone party tonight! All we need now is that little idiot in office to fund stem cell research, and we'll be redifining humanity. Asimov would be proud.
-Ion