An Artificial Heart That Doesn't Beat

straitstimes.com

4 pointsprat4 comments

Here is the detailed article http://www.technologyreview.com/biomedicine/17523/

Thank you for the link, this is great stuff.

The longest the AbioCor heart functioned in clinical trials was 18 months, while continuous flow devices are being designed to operate for 10 or more years.

Frazier also says continuous flow pumps are better able to respond to the body's changing needs for blood. "If you're walking, more blood is pumped back to the heart and the heart will automatically pump more," he says. If pressure on one side of the pump increases, flow through the device automatically increases, allowing the pump to respond like a native heart, Frazier says.

Here's hoping all of Frazier's predictions are true, including the one about the 2050 Olympics.

> But what about the long-term impact of living pulse-free? That question is a matter of lively debate in the cardiac device community. Akif Undar, a clinician and cardiac researcher at Penn State University, says pulse is important to get blood to all the small capillaries feeding the organs. "I think you would see organ damage in animals given a [non-pulsing] heart," he says.

Well, since it's now in at least one human, we're finding out what the side effects are as we speak.

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