Put your ear against a patient with this implant’s chest, and all you’ll hear is a faint humming sound. Touch their wrist, and there will be no pulse.
The machine is a continuous-flow pump that consists of simple whirling rotors, which spin a patient’s blood throughout his body instead of pumping it. Since the device has just one moving part, it actually works better and lasts longer than other artificial hearts.
Doctors have successfully replaced multiple calves’ hearts with these centrifugal pumps, and recently tried them in humans. Sadly, the man who received the new implant died due to complications from his disease – but he lived for more than a month without a heartbeat.
A final design, a manufacturer and FDA approval is still needed before the continuous-flow artificial heart can come to the market. But we can’t help but wonder – how do you tell when a patient dies if you can’t hear a heartbeat or feel a pulse? [NPR]
faction
Wednesday, June 15, 2011 at 1:57 PMTake that, team Rainbow! Your heartbeat sensors are USELESS!
Rhys
Wednesday, June 15, 2011 at 2:12 PMThanks! Thats funny as!
Nodeity
Wednesday, June 15, 2011 at 2:34 PMActually I remember years ago seeing a news or Towards 2000 can’t remember which, involving a young lady who’s heart had a dying muscle or some-such thing and she had a worm drive pump implanted to relieve the stress on her heart. She also had no discernible heart beat and it saved her life. I always wondered why they never developed the device further?
Peter
Wednesday, June 15, 2011 at 2:39 PMCould this possibly wear down blood vessels faster then a pumping heart? Or increase blood pressure or anything like that?
Teddy
Wednesday, June 15, 2011 at 3:18 PMWith no long term evidence as to it’s effects on the blood vessel walls it’s hard to say whether a continuous pumping action will wear them down however blood vessels are comprised of endothelial and smooth muscle cells which replicate/replace just like any other cell when they’re damaged. Blood pressure is the resistance that the heart must overcome in order to pump blood out and therefore an artificial heart shouldn’t have an effect on BP. BP is usually altered by artherosclerosis and more peripheral resistance rather than the heart itself.
Steve
Thursday, June 16, 2011 at 2:25 PMPossible, but unlikely. All pumped blood is inherently pulsatile, but is smoothed into a continuous stream due to elasticity of arteries, the further down the line it goes.
I’m sure the engineers would have designed this thing to be as close to a regular human heart as possible.