U.K. Man Gets Artificial Heart in Pioneering Surgery

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A British man is preparing to leave the hospital after pioneering surgery to install an artificial heart implant. The implant is powered by a portable device and is designed to keep him alive while he waits for a heart transplant.

It looks like a casual family stroll.

But Matthew Green is a walking miracle.

His heart has been removed.

Green is kept alive by a device called a Total Artificial Heart powered by a magnetic charger kept in his shoulder bag.

The 40-year-old was suffering from end-stage biventricular heart failure. Neither side of his heart worked as it should.

Doctors at Cambridge's Papworth Hospital feared he'd die while waiting for a donor heart to become available for transplant, and decided an artificial heart was his best option.

Surgeons led by Dr Steven Tsui operated on him in June.

[Dr. Steven Tsui, Consultant Cardiothoracic Surgeon and Director]:
"We removed the patient's diseased native heart, including both of the failed ventricles, as well as all the heart valves. And then we put in the new machine and the insertion is stitching the machine in, in a way very similar to a heart transplant. The operation itself went very smoothly. It took us about six hours to do the operation."

Mechanical hearts have been transplanted before, but have usually only replaced parts of the organ.

The device works by replacing both failing ventricles and the heart valves they contain.

[Dr. Steven Tsui, Consultant Cardiothoracic Surgeon and Director]:
"These two tubings are called the drive lines and these are tunneled across the skin, so that they can be attached to an external console....Once the patients have made recovery from the surgery itself we then change to a smaller portable console."

Green is recovering well from his six-hour operation. He hopes to be sent home soon, along with his bag, known as a 'Freedom Backpack'.

Previously patients with artificial hearts have been permanently attached to a hospital machine.

[Matthew Green, Transplant Patient]:
"Walking around is okay. It's quite a heavy device at the moment and I'm still recovering from my operation. So all the bones in the chest haven't healed yet, so I struggle to carry it but I can walk around fine, but I need a trolley to start with."

The London-based research scientist says he isn't prepared to take life lying down.

[Matthew Green, Transplant Patient]:
"Hopefully in a few months time I'll be able to go cycling. It's my main sport I used to really enjoy doing, so that's what I really hope to be able to be doing. Before I could hardly walk, only a few tens of meters, and things like stairs were very very difficult to get up a flight of stairs."

The heart was devised by U.S.-based company SynCardia.

It provides blood flow of up to nine-and-a-half liters per minute throughout the body.

It's designed to last only three years and Green will eventually need an organ transplant.

In the meantime he says his Freedom Backpack is giving him bags of energy.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• NTD
• NTDTV
• U.K.
• Artificial
• Heart
• Pioneering
• Surgery
• Matthew Green
• biventricular
• Papworth Hospital
• Freedom Backpack
• SynCardia

[JJStuffEngineering]

awesome

[Kraska93]

My father told me that the doctor used one of this artificial heart when I had my surgery 11 years ago because they had to take my heart out of my body.

[puketinho]

@mistresspav only science tells us, about the heart, what it made out from, myocard cells, which carry only one function,pumping and thats all, brain cells are the cells who tell you ,where the pain is comming from, and all other feelings, this artificial heart is a product of science, which can be use for a bridging period and can safe the life, I hope the day will come when sceince give us a new heart which we can keep in the body for the rest of life.

[mistresspav]

@puketinho slogans? not everything is marketing.. not in my reality at least.

"only brain is responsible for the feelings pallet." - says who? fair enough if that]s what you believe in but you might want to consider that present day science is not ALL not absolute.

[puketinho]

@mistresspav no, no chi or humanity or all other slogans come from the heart, only brain is responsible for the feelings pallet.

[ioctlvoid]

@bbphnix

There are more advanced systems available, such as the Abiocor. What you're talking about is likely not even on the drawing board though. The biggest problem is not how neat it is nor what its power supply is. The biggest concern is mechanical failure, infection or blood clots forming -- that is what new models should focus on, extending the lifetime and general reliability of the artificial heart. Nowadays the artificial heart can fail while you're still waiting.

[zipppit89]

@mistresspav BUT, if he's waiting for a heart-doner and has no choice then it's a good thing!

[sizzo666]

@mistresspav True with out a heart were robots.

[Phroshy]

Is that his heart you can hear in the background all the time?? That's really creepy.

[mistresspav]

artificial heart can't replace chi and humanity, we are doomed for good is we start using this.