| Home | Medi News | Medical Tidbits | Interesting Topics | Ask a Question |

Artificial hearts could be the future, offering hope to thousands of patients awaiting heart transplants. A few months ago, a device known as ABISO was fitted into a 21-year-old female patient with viral myocarditis at the John Radeliffe Hospital in Oxford, United Kingdom. The device was left in place while the patient's heart rested. The patient's heart thus got a chance to recover from a very advanced state of deterioration.

The device was actually a 'left ventricular assist device' that pumped blood continuously without a pulse. Its inlet was stitched into the left ventricle and the outlet into the aorta bypassing the failing left ven- tricle and enabling the ventricle to

rest' The pump sat on the right of the diaphragm with an electric power line running out of the body into a control box.

The patient is the first to survive implantation of this device. The operation has also demonstrated that resting the heart can aid its recovery. Previous applications for such devices have been to keep patients alive while awaiting transplantation.

Artificial hearts date back to the mid 1950s and in the 1960s the first patient was kept alive for several hours using an artificial heart. In 1982, a device called Jaryik-7 kept a patient alive for 112 days while awaiting a heart implant.

Following the discovery that a pulse is not essential to maintain organ function, research is now focussed on developing non-pulse systems with fewer moving parts. One of the main drawbacks is the size of the hearts and their attached batteries. However, a device the size of a thumbnail and with a discrete battery called Jarvik 2000 has been developed. It is capable of pumping 10 liters of blood a minute and can be left in place for long terms. The pump is powered by a tiny motor wired through the body to an external battery via a small hole behind the car. It is hoped that the device will be ready for use on patients in a few months. Potential uses include permanent circulatory support and as a bridge to transplantation or to myocardial recovery in acute or chronic left ventricular failure.