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French Team Implants First Long-Term Artificial Heart
TrueSatan writes "Physicians at the Georges Pompidou European Hospital in Paris have inserted a heart made by the French Carmat company. The heart features bovine tissue components used to reduce the clot forming tendencies of fully artificial units and is intended to allow greater freedom of movement to the patient than previous, short-term use, units permitted. It is powered by external, wearable, lithium-ion batteries and is approximately three times heavier than a typical (European) human heart, though the manufacturer intends to reduce the weight and size of the unit so as to allow use by smaller recipients — in particular most women and men from areas of the world where average body size is less than white/Caucasian averages."
Seriously, once in a while I like to kind of just take these sort of advancements at face value. It's just astonishing to me that we are so close to alleviating at least one facet of the organ transplant shortages that have so many people waiting for so long in uncertainty. This day could not get here fast enough and I hope that it becomes a true milestone down a great path for medical technology.
But damn that is an expensive pump.
a typical (European) human heart
. . . no, African or European . . . that determines if the recipient can migrate while carrying a coconut.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Yeah, I'd be scared half out of my mind most of the time if I had to have one of these keeping me alive. I work with electronics and know enough to know what can go wrong. There would have to be redundancies built into the system.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
In modern times, Artificial Heart designs have been diverging into two camps. This one belongs to the old-school cardiac mimics -- complex multi-chamber pumps designed to mimic the pulsatile flow of a natural heart. The bovine pericardium lining is a clever idea -- we already make bio-prosthetic valves (mostly from pig heart valves). As the material is non-living connective tissue, it doesn't raise the same acute rejection problems that living xeno-grafts have. And, while most patients with such valves still require permanent treatment with drugs to prevent clots, the required degree of anti-coagulation is much less than those required with mechanical valves.
The other school consists of the pulse-less turbine-type devices. Instead of mimicking a natural heart, these devices use a high-speed rotating impeller to drive fluid flow. It was once thought that the shearing forces of an impeller would result in too much damage to red blood cells, and that pulsatile flow of blood was a necessary feature physiological feature, but non-pulsatile later-generation Ventricular Assistive Devices have demonstrated this is not the case. Currently, all such devices are only used as adjuncts to a failing natural heart, and there are no such devices approved as complete replacements -- yet. Compared with their more complex cousins, these devices are smaller and lighter, and mechanically more robust. However, they suffer from issues with clots and damage to leukocytes, due to the artificial materials used.
In either case, it will be interesting to see how the devices performs out in the field. The expected Five-year lifespan of a unit doesn't sound like much, but keep in mind many patients will be elderly, and your goal may simply be to give them improved quality-of-life, until in a few years something else kills them instead.
So, -biological- differences between -biological- races (yes, races...) do exist - like the size of the heart, the dick... the brain!?
In all three cases, it's not the size that counts, it's what you do with it.
I am officially gone from
Seriously... why try to replicate the original heart design when you could make something so much better? And why just ONE heart? What kind of engineer came up with this design? You'd do better to have MULTIPLE hearts pushing blood through your body. I'd have no less than three in me, if i had the option.
I think that was an option in a CyberPunk book. Replacing the heart with a system of small blood pumps located throughout the body. That sounds good to me.
Now I can finally realize my dream of faithfully reenacting having a Nausicaan skewer me through the back in a bar fight...although I'm not sure I'll have the presence of mind to laugh deliriously afterward.
I'd make a few improvements myself too. Like installing sphincters on the brachial and femoral arteries that can constrict in the event of extreme trauma. It would substantially improve survival rate in serious accidents.
One heart can be enough, but it'd better be a very reliable heart. No single points of failure where a clot or blockage can cause the whole thing to shut down.
I'm French. France is definitely socialist, and so-called innovations happened in spite of that, not because of it. True capitalism is the best thing that could happen to France.
If you're actually saying that you'd be 100% comfortable knowing that a battery pack is all that's standing between you and oblivion, then you're either a liar or a fool.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Knowing someone who made good health choices, but had congestive heart failure anyway, and is now alive due to an LVAD (Left Ventricular Assist Device), I'd say that you don't have any clue about the real world. Yes, some folks drink or smoke themselves sick, but guess what ? Parts fail. We'll just leave you by the side of the ER when yours do...
It's definitely not a new idea...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FInoU0wzgzY
I believe he's saying he's 100% sure it's better than death.
If you want people to make better nutritional choices, you should support increasing the minimum wage and encourage shorter working hours. When people have enough time and money. they make better choices.