Doctors Create Artificial Heart That Doesn’t Beat. It Also Works.
Welcome to the fucking future. Where we eat shit-steaks and we have outstanding artificial hearts that keep us alive, sans-pulse. Whirling glories of devices that apparently actually work. Amazing.
NPR:
Dr. Billy Cohn and Dr. Bud Frazier at the Texas Heart Institute say they have developed a machine that could avoid all that with simple whirling rotors – which means people may soon get a heart that has no beat.
[cont]
In March, after practicing on 38 calves, Cohn and Frazier felt confident enough to try their device on a human patient. They chose Craig Lewis, a 55-year-old who was dying from amyloidosis, which causes a buildup of abnormal proteins. The proteins clog the organs so much that they stop working.
In Lewis’ case, his heart became so damaged, doctors said he had about 12 hours left to live.
His wife, Linda, said they should try the artificial heart.
[cont]
Cohn and Frazier did not start totally from scratch. They took two medical implants known as ventricular assist devices and hooked them together.
A ventricular assist device has a screwlike rotor of blades, which pushes the blood forward in a continuous flow.
Thousands of people have one of these implanted close to their hearts, including former Vice President Dick Cheney. By using two, the doctors replaced both the right and left ventricles – the entire heart.
“I listened and it was a hum, which was amazing,” Linda Lewis says. “He didn’t have a pulse.”
The doctors say the continuous-flow pump should last longer than other artificial hearts and cause fewer problems. That’s because each side has just one moving part: the constantly whirling rotor.
Lewis survived for more than a month with his wondrous whirling heart, before the underlying disease claimed him. Good lord, just think about that. Having an artificial heart that whirling blood throughout you, keeping you alive without a pulse.
This is the future. It is amazing.