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15-Year-Old Boy Fitted With Robotic Heart
An anonymous reader writes "What do you do when a 15-year-old boy is close to death and ineligible for a heart transplant? If you're Dr. Antonio Amodeo you turn to an artificial solution and transplant a robotic heart, giving the boy another 20-25 years of life. The Italian boy in question suffers from Duchenne muscular dystrophy, which rapidly degenerates the muscles and eventually leads to death. Having such a disease renders the boy ineligible for a heart transplant, meaning almost certain death without an alternative solution. Dr. Amodeo found such an alternative in the form of a 90-gram, fully-robotic heart that took 10 hours to fit inside the boy's left ventricle. It is a permanent solution offering as much as 25 years of life and is powered by a battery worn as a belt."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duchenne_muscular_dystrophy
He's got Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. Living to 40 is exceptionally rare, and most people who have this disease don't live to be 30. Sadly, by the time he gets anywhere near 40, another system that cannot be replaced/augmented as easily will probably have failed. The pump they installed will almost certainly outlast him, sad as that concept is.
Still, he was just a few days from death according to the article. Even if he only makes it a few more years, it's a few more than his natural heart could have kept him alive to see, and maybe there will be enough of an advance to patch up whatever other systemic failures lie in his future. I sincerely hope that in 25 years he's looking at a replacement to the pump, but this is sadly probably the last one he'll ever need.
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy is a progressive, irreversible muscular disorder where the muscle cells literally pull themselves apart due to the lack of a key membrane-stabilising protein, Dystrophin.
So now this boy's heart can't give out for 25 years, you're then only consigning him to die of suffocation as his diaphragm does.
Oh no, ventilator. Well, let's wait for his oesophagus, colon and eye muscles to go...
But he's still alive, just locked into an immobile, artificially ventilated body with a heart that will never stop.
That seems worse than the natural alternative to me.