First Artificial Heart Implanted in Human Patient

[Andrew_C]

Nice, but 5 years seems a short amount of time for a viable heart transplant alternative. I mean invasive surgery like that would require maintenance every few years which isn't conductive to recovery I would think.

It's not meant as an alternative, it's meant to keep you going until they can find a suitable heart. IIRC 5 years is the average wait for a heart transplant, and some people don't have 5 years.

 

[Deacon Cole]

Well, to be fair, this is the first one EVER.

Except for the Jarvik 7, but I guess we don't count that one, do we?

 

[cikame]

I'm assuming patients who have this cannot move, that this is a temporary measure until a real heart is found?
The weight alone makes me terrified of the idea of this, to the average person your own real heart just kind of works, who knows what a mechanical one wants to do .

Still, always fun to see progress.

 

[asinann]

Wikipedia: "the first artificial heart to be successfully implanted in a human was the Jarvik-7, designed by Robert Jarvik and implemented in 1982."

So, um, is this the first FRENCH artificial heart or did this article take 31 years to get posted?

Serious, just a little research guys.

As they are saying "transplanted" I would speculate that they mean this one is the first internal one, usually artificial hearts are either large machines or the size of a travel case and the patient has to carry around a box with pumps in etc. Not sure though I guess its time actually do some research about it.

The heart itself is purely internal, even from 1982. The oldest ones needed massive machines to keep them going and didn't last long. The ones made more recently have been internal if a little large, but they haven't needed massive support machines in 20 years.

Like this guy already linked,

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-14363731

Other hearts needed substantial external support equipment, if that French heart is fully internal it could easily be the first. I did say in my original post that they range from the size of a large machine to something the size of a travel case, I remember the one in the BBC report too and it was very noisy and made loud clacking and clonking noises as it pumped.

Except that the AbioCore has been fully implantable since 2002. The movie "Crank" featured a similarly named artificial heart.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AbioCor

Except those Abiocores could at best give you a year and a half extra on the transplant list, whereas this Carmat heart can let the patient live a relatively normal life for 5 years. The achievement in prolonging life is incredible

BioMed

AbioCor

The first AbioCor to be surgically implanted in a patient was on July 3, 2001.[18] The AbioCor is made of titanium and plastic with a weight of two pounds, and its internal battery can be recharged with a transduction device that sends power through the skin.[18] The internal battery lasts for a half hour, and a wearable external battery pack lasts for four hours.[19] The FDA announced on September 5, 2006, that the AbioCor could be implanted for humanitarian uses after the device had been tested on 15 patients.[20] It is intended for critically ill patients who can not receive a heart transplant.[20] Some limitations of the current AbioCor are that its size makes it suitable for only about 50% of the male population, and its useful life is only 1?2 years.[21]

AbioCor II

By combining its valved ventricles with the control technology and roller screw developed at Penn State, AbioMed has designed a smaller, more stable heart, the AbioCor II. This pump, which should be implantable in most men and 50% of women with a life span of up to five years,[21] had animal trials in 2005, and the company hoped to get FDA approval for human use in 2008.[22]

That means the only reason this is news is because the Abio-core 2 still hasn't been approved by the FDA and won't be until it's needed. This is half a decade out of date to even be a "it's the first with a 5 year life span" thing. You guys are REALLY stretching to find a reason for this to be news: just like when the Escapist announced earlier this year that the first flying car had been invented. The flying car was invented in the 1940's.

BTW, the Abio core 2 is at the same stage of approval this new one is: clinical trials.

 

[Evonisia]

That's great, especially since the newer models will be much more efficient. Now can we move onto merging human arms with guns?

 

[The_R3d_Fury]

I'm sorry, 'the trials will be deemed successful if the human patients survive for more then a month?

That would be an extremely nerve-wracking month. It could stress people out and put an inordinate amount of pressure on the artificial heart. It'd be interesting to see how this thing handles blood clots, though.

 

[Two-A]

Er, what? There have been working artificial hearts since the 1980's; what's different about this one?

It works?

It they have been working in this since the 80's, then it's obvious they want to report on a working prototype.

Edit: Sorry, should have read the rest of the posts. Apparently the difference is the fact that it doesn't require a external power source to work.

 

[Use_Imagination_here]

Also 5 years is a bit short for shelf life of a heart, even more so at 200k a pop.

Presumably he can get on a waiting list 3 years before it expires and have a new heart waiting from him on a platter.

You CAN actually get regular heart replacements, but you might not get one in time, which should be fixed by this machine here.

 

[Requia]

Now to really get 3D printing up and going so these things are cheap and available to the masses.

Not possible with current design it still needs some organic tissue to function.

Also 5 years is a bit short for shelf life of a heart, even more so at 200k a pop.

I am very interested though that this could be the first true test of the human body rejecting or accepting true artificial replacement. And whether we will have/need to create a real world equivalent of neuropozyne or not.

It's not as short a life as you'd think. Human hearts go to people with the best long term outlook, which means artificial hearts (at least until they outperform the real thing) are going to go to people with poor short term outlooks, IE, people for whom 5 years is probably all they're going to get even with a human heart.