The illness was wasting his muscles away and prevented him from receiving a heart transplant, causing doctors in Rome to insert the 4cm long electrically activated hydraulic pump “heart” in his left ventricle. A plug behind his left ear and a battery attached to his belt powers the heart, which will gift him another 20-25 years of life that he wouldn’t have had without this operation.
If you compare the unnamed boy’s 90g heart with the first ever artificial heart from 1969, you can see just how far the medical world has progressed in those 41 years. The photo above shows the first ever artificial heart, which was placed inside a man’s heart for 64 hours while he waited for a donor heart. [Telegraph and Daily Mail]
Nodeity
Tuesday, October 5, 2010 at 11:41 AMSo how about a piccy of the lads new heart..?
Jedi
Tuesday, October 5, 2010 at 4:56 PMBump
LGB
Tuesday, October 5, 2010 at 2:25 PMA 4cm hydraulic pump placed in the boys left ventricle does not really constitute a “Robot Heart” or even an artificial one.
The left ventricle is only one of the 4 chambers of the human heart.
So to hazard a guess the pump was placed in the boys own failing heart in an attempt to assist the heart to perform its normal function.
Most likely the muscle tissue which makes up the left ventricle had deteriorated to a point where it was endangering the boy’s life.