France's Carmat implants its first artificial heart in human | Hacker News Reader

France's Carmat implants its first artificial heart in human

reuters.com

86 pointsbnegreve21 comments

Perhaps this title was initially Reuters' error? Their current headline reads, "France's Carmat implants its first artificial heart in human".

This sounds like a big first step for this company, though as other commenters have noted, this is certainly not the first artificial heart implanted in a human.

Certainly, if there were a viable long-term replacement that didn't require people to become brain dead so that others could get a heart transplant, that would be a major boon to humanity. And a 5-year bridge, if the hopes for the lifetime of this device pan out, would be a major forward step.

I suggest checking out the short video "Flatline" on Vimeo. I can't link to it from my phone but it's worth a watch.

Really worth a watch: http://vimeo.com/46912551

I was incredibly excited by this, but the article mentions that another company, SynCardia already has a thousand of these devices deployed into Production.

It seems it is the first device to really deserve the term "artificial heart". Before, it was blood pump.

> first implant of an artificial heart that can beat for up to five years

One: I don't think this is the first. Two: the artificial hearts I've heard of don't actually beat; it's more of a constant flow.

Wikipedia says 1982 was the first. From this article:

"""Heart-assistance devices have been used for decades as a temporary solution for patients awaiting transplants, but Carmat's bioprosthetic product is designed to replace the real heart over the long run, mimicking nature's work using biological materials and sensors."""

edit: the headline is a little confusing, but it's currently phrased "Carmat's first," a company formed specifically to advance the state of the art in synthetic organs.

Wikipedia cites this[0] account of the first transplant:

"""During the 112 days that he survived, he underwent four additional operations, had several episodes of bleeding, and experienced prolonged periods of confusion. He even asked to die on several occasions."""

[0]http://celebrities.healthdiaries.com/the-25th-anniversary-of...

The Jarvic 7/SynCardia temporary CardioWest Total Artificial Hear and Abiocor both seem to simulate a heart beat.

My brief research also suggests they are the most widely used devices (the support support system for the Jarvic 7 is down to 13 pounds!). I'm not familiar with the stuff, I just thought it was an interesting question.

Reading their website (http://www.carmatsa.com/index.php?option=com_flexicontent&vi...), as near as I can tell, they're basically claiming to be "closest yet" to a real heart, including "auto-regulation", which I think means they're saying it can beat faster or slower as you need more or less bloodflow.

The scariest thing is that they also boast a significant increase in battery life ... to 12 hours. Jesus, I get angry when my cell phone dies after 12 hours.

Shows how amazing evolution is at "designing" complex efficient systems. Our hearts beat for 70-100+ years without a charge.

Don't know about you, but my heart needs a charge every six hours and it goes in hibernation mode every 12 hours.

Can I upgrade to yours? :-)

If your heart stops beating for 12 hours, maybe you need to talk to your doctor.

Pretty amazing that it was a result of a lucky mutation. I wonder what happened to the millions (billions?) of organisms that couldn't maintain a steady heartbeat?

They had their lunch eaten by the heartbeaters, and when we were done eating their lunch, we ate them :)

I'm pretty sure you have to eat every so often for your heart to keep on working...

This one actually regulates itself based on your physical activity. They also think it should beat faster if you're in a stressful or emotional situation (such as meeting with your crush). This is based on the fact that your blood vessels will dilate themselves and the artificial heart will compensate.

Why does it need to pump or emulate a real heart? Could one not create the same in a much smaller form factor with lower power usage?

Are you asking if pulsation flow is needed? Other systems depend on the pulsation nature of our circulatory system. I'm no expert, but off the top of my head CSF flow and bowel peristalsis depend on pulsation blood flow to a degree (or so I was taught, ages ago). I'm sure there are others who are more knowledgeable here though.

When it come to nature, overall power usage is hard to beat. We run a full day with a few meals. That is quite a feat.

let's hope this doesn't go the way french breast implants went in the not too distant past!

On that note, it's important to set your expectations correctly on new medical technology. Early heart transplants were considered a success if the patient survived surgery long enough to wake up; it took a lot of work to go from that to many-year survivals.

I'm rooting for whoever got the first one of these off the line, but if he throws a clot and dies next week, keep in mind this shit is hard. Hopefully they'll work out any problems that develop, iterate on the product, and by the time most of us need one of these, they'll have 20-, 30-, 40-year survivals under their belts.

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