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Engineer Designs His Own Heart Valve Implant
nametaken writes "In 2000, Tal Golesworthy, a British engineer, was told that he suffers from Marfan syndrome, a disorder of the connective tissue that often causes rupturing of the aorta. The only solution then available was the pairing of a mechanical valve and a highly risky blood thinner. To an engineer like Golesworthy, that just wasn't good enough. So he constructed his own implant that does the job better than the existing solution--and became the first patient to try it."
here
Slashdot ya no es que lo era!
Fuck POPSCI, here's the link to the original article (Warning: graphic photographs)
What one fool can do, another can. (Ancient Simian Proverb)
Living tissue (like a vein) is the most infection-resistant substrate. Infection is a major worry when using artificial graft material, because there isn't and won't be any blood supply to the graft. Synthetic grafts would be grossly inferior to venous grafts, which themselves are poor substitutes for arterial grafts (but there are remarkably few redundant arteries, so the question is generally moot).
From reading the theengineer.co.uk article, it seems that it is a precisely created wrapping around the outside of the bulging aorta, supporting it. The 'breakthrough' is using medical imaging and 3D printing to make a model of his aorta, so the wrapping can be made accurately before the operation. Previous attempts where the aorta had to be measured and the support created during the operation had been tried unsuccessfully.
Prediction for end of Universe #42: Fencepost error in Quantum_bogosort.cpp
It's a perineum gangrene (pubic area) acording to the internet. Grangrenes are painful rotting of living tissue and require amputation lest you get infected from the necrotic tissue; I suppose its picture has lots of black tissue where you expect skin colors, pus, gore, lots of rotting and hanging skin, and unkempt pubic hairs, and badly decayed sexual organs; male and female.
We see tons of hearts on TV, and they're beating --not rotting-- while being operating on, unhealthy as they may be at the moment. No, there's no need to see a picture of your proposed comparison to sober up. But thanks for letting us inspect how bad things can get.
When you transplant an organ, it is connected to blood vessels and thus is exposed to the immune system. When you put in biologic valves, no blood vessels are connected and there is no immune rejection. We do not understand completely why they are not rejected, because obviously they do get some blood, since they aren't ischemic, but I believe it has to do with the lack of good blood supply.
BTW, as far as I know Porcine valves also do not need immunosuppresion, same as corneal implants.
Whenever in an argument, remember this.
The aorta is more like a balloon, less like a pipe. The graft is not very large, maybe 5-6 cm in length. In effect, you have moved the beginning of the aorta downstream a few cm. The aorta is supposed to expand with each beat and absorb the blood squeezed out by the heart, then shrink back down to size during diastole. This graft means that the first part of the aorta can't do that, and so the next part will have to. Soon, it too may need a jacket...
In May 2004, we wouldn't have known if the procedure was actually successful. The fact that they tried a new technique isn't news. That he's still alive 7 years later is news.
The life expectancy of someone with Marfan syndrome was 32 +/- 16 years in 1972, and is now 41 +/- 18 years (all you need to see from that link is the abstract). If I could guess that the increase has to do with improved treatment technology (rather than improved management strategies), then someone getting surgery for Marfan syndrome is probably in their 20s or 30s, because they're unlikely to live too much longer than their late 30's or early 40's without surgery.