First Artificial Heart Implanted in Human Patient

[Do4600]

I remember reading about this in Popular Science a few months ago. You actually don't have a pulse, it's just a constant flow. It's like the difference between a hand pump and a mechanical one. I recommend people to avoid needed organ transplants, especially if you're the kind of person who waxes philosophic every now and then, it introduces many new variables in considering what it means to be alive.

 

[Volothos]

In time, we shall have a heart transplant fitting of when Sir Patrick Stewart reincarnates as a star ship captain.

That aside, good to see the technology is improving.

 

[Rufus Shinra]

It turns out this is the only the first artificial heart that didn't require some sort of external device to fully function. Progress is progress but this is more of a small step than a huge leap.

I must disagree with you here. Such a device would allow the patient to live a normal life, unlike the previous ones. This is the kind of smooth implants we've been dreaming of for quite a long time and which could be the basis for actual improvements over the natural organ. From there you can work on an artificial heart able to better regulate the performance of the individual, for specific activities or situations. A soldier whose heart could slow down or accelerate in various conditions would be able to survive some wounds where another would have bled out, walk longer, etc. Or pilots, maybe. The maneuverability of the manned planes is limited by the ability of their pilots to remain functional under very high accelerations as the blood cannot be pumped all the way to the brain. Problem potentially solved here, and without the individual being forcefully linked to heavy equipment.

So, yeah, autonomous implants doing the same job as the natural organ are one hell of a huge leap.

 

[kannibus]

All refs to Star Trek and Deus Ex aside (but were, nonetheless, very cool) I thought we already had artificial hearts? After all, aren't there big warning signs to people with pacemakers?

A pacemaker and an artificial heart are very different things. A pacemaker just gives your heart tiny electric shocks telling it when to beat. An artificial heart actually pumps blood. However, yes, we've had artificial hearts for a long time. Starting in the '60s, they would implant artificial hearts for a few days so they could get a transplant heart, and in 1982 they implanted the first artificial heart meant to be permanent. This is just the first time this particular model of artificial heart has been used.

Ah, thanks for clearing that up! Though it's somewhat startling to realize that I've been engaging in activities blissfully thinking that I could get a new heart should my old one be rendered inoperative.

Yikes.

No more provoking humongous aliens in seedy dives for me... now whatever shall I do with myself on Friday evenings?

 

[Arnoxthe1]

I thought we already had made artificial hearts? I specifically remember reading something about it. Pretty sure it was like back in 2000.

 

[James Joseph Emerald]

Goddamn. I wonder how long before rich people can actually become immortal cyborgs.

Shit. Nuts.

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

I didn't think of that...
Some people say the rapidly enhancing medical technology will ruin the economy as retirees will live too long for the system to handle and bankrupt the government. I think the opposite will happen: the concept of "retiring" will go by the wayside as people will be perpetually healthy.

 

[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

 

[J Tyran]

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

No idea why this article is labeling it as the "first" then, could just be typical Escapist journalism at its finest after all.

 

[Icehearted]

I seem to remember the first artificial heart being done quite some time ago, unless I'm missing something. Which is why we read comments!

The artificial heart, which looks like something right out of Deus Ex...

So, video game related then? I like, btw, that your "ouch" was the price tag and not the 'having your heart removed and living on a piece of tech for a few borrowed years'.

I look forward to when we do have the kind of tech to augment ourselves like in Deus EX, at least until people do things to make themselves kind of disgusting and fucked up like they have with other augmentations; forked tongues, sub-dermal implants, eyeball tattoos, scarification. Remember those monstrosities in John Carpenter's "The Thing"? It'll be worse.

 

[KazeAizen]

Obligatory "we can make him stronger, faster, etc"

in all honesty though...so it begins.. the awesome days of cyborgs! first is the limbs, now its the heart. next.. the world! wait wut..

And next we look like Silver from Treasure Planet......actually that would be kind of awesome to have that arm.

 

[Warachia]

Wasn't the first artificial heart made a long time ago?
Found it: http://texasheart.org/Research/Devices/j7tah.cfm
This isn't even remotely close to the first artificial heart.

 

[Warachia]

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.

Actually, it's an accurate statement, but it's got heavy media spin. It's like a headline a month ago (I live in Canada) that read as though Toronto Mayor Rob Ford was arrested on drug charges, but was actually a Florida mayor arrested and the arresting officer said something like 'this isn't Toronto.'

The line was: performed the first ever transplant of French pharmaceutical company Carmat's artificial heart to a human patient...

And so it is their first heart, so it's technically correct, etc.

Bugs me too, but it really is just spin.

But the title is still a lie though.

 

[Jadak]

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

Fully implanted, yes. But battery powered. I was under the impression that this one was not. Nevertheless, the wikipedia page on 'artifical hearts' does suggest that this has more or less already happened a couple times in the last few years.

In any case, the main distinction between something like this and something like the AbioCor is that those older devices are more along the lines of substitutes for a heart to serve the same purpose, while newer ones like this are more along the lines of trying to actually be a heart.

 

[Rufus Shinra]

Wasn't the first artificial heart made a long time ago?
Found it: http://texasheart.org/Research/Devices/j7tah.cfm
This isn't even remotely close to the first artificial heart.

And this is why you should actually read the rest of the thread, where you'd learn that this is the first artificial heart that does not require an external power source, which is one hell of a breakthrough.

 

[Estranged180]

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.

Thank you. I was just looking at it again to make sure I hadn't gone insane. I haven't. Seems fitting, however, that this point had to be made by a 'Doctor' =)

 

[Rufus Shinra]

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.

Thank you. I was just looking at it again to make sure I hadn't gone insane. I haven't. Seems fitting, however, that this point had to be made by a 'Doctor' =)

Not insane, just not well-researched, since it's actually a big breakthrough.

 

[Sean Kay]

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

 

[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.