Australian man survives 100 days with artificial heart in world-first success
Sydney surgeons ‘enormously proud’ after patient in his 40s receives the Australian-designed implant designed as a bridge before donor heart
The Australian researchers and doctors behind the operation announced on Wednesday that the implant had been an “unmitigated clinical success” after the man lived with the device for more than 100 days before receiving a donor heart transplant in early March.
Just in case anyone else also found the title ambiguous regarding whether "100 days" meant he died 😅
There's been a lot of cases at the start of transplant tech where people have willingly gone through the surgery, knowing they would almost certainly die, and their living 100days was counted as a massive success.
The fact this guy lived 100 days, got a donor heart, and is still, currently, alive... that's icing.
Thank you.
Apparently you can live with a BiVACOR TAH for around 10 years without replacement due to the Maglev system inside it.
Gosh it feels like cyberpunk 2077 is just a few years away, we just need more corporate built cities.
Yeah umm https://lemmy.ca/post/40524583
That's the same picture.
oh yay, a techno dystopia, just wait for the repo men after you miss your heart payment
https://tubitv.com/movies/332938/repo-the-genetic-opera
I guess that could be the specific dystopia we're aiming for. It's a hell of a race to beat the other dystopias/apocalypses there though. But what else would you expect from a type 13 planet in it's final stage?
America is on track I’d say, Musk n Zuck are so horny to do that…
Did some fuckin’ Aussie heart surgeon just breeze into a Home Depot and saunter into the plumbing aisle in his board shorts and flips flops and just whip together a heart out of brass fittings and teflon tape???
“Oi! DANNY, YA FUCKIN’ BOGAN! I DONE DID YA UP A NEW RICKY TICKEY—ALL FUCKIN’ SHINEY AND CHROME!!! GRAB A CARPET KNIFE AND SOME DUNNY GLOVES—WE’ll GET THIS FUCKER INTO YOUR BLUDGER CHEST BEFORE YA SHEILA SAYS YA WERE CHUCKING A SICKIE!”
Function over form, I suppose. I am pretty sure it's mostly made of titanium and silicone.
It does seems like that sometimes tho, that surgeons are the mechanics of the human body, fixing you up in the most crude ways, as long as it gets the job done.
That's the reason a friend of mine once said that surgeons are the only Doctor meds he has respect for.
Also, what do you mean form follows function? It looks like a fricking mini turbo charger 😎
Funny you would say that, the inventor credits trips with his father to Bunnings as inspiration for his work
I just gotta say.
Photoshopping is such a great skill to have. Thank you for making my day better.
It'd be a Bunnings down here not home depot, but it sure looks like it
For orthopods though, using power tools and sledgehammers is pretty much the name of the game.
STREWTH!
Bunnings is the appropriate hardware store franchise here. He of course would have grabbed a Snag outside on the way home
How can I upvote a comment more than once?
I remember reading about this years ago. It's so cool seeing it being used successfully in a patient! Technology like this makes me feel better about the future.
It's really cool, but also kind of depressing, to see what we're capable of when we're also speed running to extinction while not even implementing well-known and obvious mitigation steategies.
How does this handle activities that require increased blood flow? Does it have a little rheostat you crank to 11 when it's time to go for a jog or something?
That sounds strampunk af, I'd get it even if I didn't need one if it did that!
First of all: congratulations. Seriously. This is awesome! Secondly: you designed the most Steampunk looking heart you could. Bravo, truly a capital marvel of fine craftsmanship.
Yes, I opened the article just to find an answer to the question: Does it really look this fucking cool? Answer: yes, yes it does.
Now this is fucking cool! Sure it will probably take some time to become affordable, but that it's possible at all is awesome.
Not to belittle this accomplishment, but how is this a "World's First" success?
Because I read the article I actually know the answer! It's the first time this technology has been used in a human, and it's been a huge success so far. Quote from the article
The BiVACOR total artificial heart, invented by Queensland-born Dr Daniel Timms, is the world’s first implantable rotary blood pump that can act as a complete replacement for a human heart, using magnetic levitation technology to replicate the natural blood flow of a healthy heart.
Likely the length of time is what's first.
Edit: nope several people have had them for over 100 days
it was first invented by Tigger, too!
That thing looks so steampunk, I’m kinda jealous.
Now time to make it look like some DeusEx heart
That's fuckin' nuts.
Also, this headline is bad. I thought he died. No. He just got a transplant after 100 days (whew).
it would be so fucking cool if he still had it but it really is uncharted territory
I wonder if his mates will forever call him “Tin Man”.
I am titaneeeuum!
This might be sort if news. I know a guy that had a pump for a heart it pumped the same non stop pressure and he wore a satchel type battery pack forever but functioned fairly normal. Always had to keep extra batteries around and the internal pump had a backup of 30 to 45 mins. This was 15 years ago.
If it was the same pressure all the time, does that mean he couldn’t do anything that would otherwise cause a normal heart to beat faster (run, exercise, feel nervous)? Would he faint or something since his “heart” won’t beat faster?
So his heart was pronounced dead, it didnt function but was left inside I think. I always wondered his abilities and I asked once that very question, particularly towards having sex lol. He used to be an alcoholic and could no longer drink as it would thin the blood and thus mess with the pumping ability.
I don't recall him ever doing anything strenuous and truthfully don't recall his answer to that question but seems like he joked that he could still do it with a woman. He walked slow, talked slowish labored sort of, laughed sheepishly like a labored laugh. Generally looked sick like you can imagine. He drove cars and that's about all I remember. Im unsure if he could turn it up maybe? I haven't spoken with him in a decade. I don't even know if he is still alive.
He got robbed/mugged in a big city about 10 years ago, the mugger took his satchel containing his medical battery bank despite him explaining the battery pack and pleading at gunpoint on a downtown street. He nearly died and an ambulance couldn't arrive in time. A stranger he flagged on the street transported him to a hospital where they somehow got him hooked up to a new battery system. They said he had mere minutes left on the internal battery inside his pump. That was the last info I heard of him. Wild to think about and he told the robber it was a medical pack but they thought it was a laptop bag and took it anyhow, it was more square like a car battery than a satchel but more vertical shaped like a rectangle.
I believe this is already the case with pacemakers
Sounds like a Left Ventricular Assist Device (LVAD)! They’re still being used today, although usually as a bridge to transplant rather than definitive therapy.
This new development is definitely exciting though, hopefully it will offer a new longer term alternative for patients :)
I don't recall him ever having a transplant done but again as I said below in the long story you might find interesting. I haven't heard from him in years. It was certainly wild to think about and to realize he has no heartbeat anymore. I'll ask a family member what ever come of him. Hopefully all is well with him. Who knows.
Sounds like a Left Ventricular Assist Device (LVAD). Interestingly enough, with the older implants there is no detectable heartbeat under a stethoscope due to the way the pump functions. Pretty surprising when you're expecting to find one, and has led to it being unoficially dubbed VLAD in reference to the creatures of the night.
This rejogs a partial memory. I do recall he said he no longer has a heart beat. He told me his heart was pronounced dead part or the whole thing I am unsure. I gave a decent story and better description below in another comment.
Yeah, my dad was on a bivad 25 years ago for almost a year. Back then it was the size of a washing machine. By the end of his hospital stay they introduced the satchel kind with batteries.
I wonder if there'll ever be artificial heart that would last for decades, I imagine that would save lots of people.
I imagine that would save lots of people.
Lots and lots and lots. All the issues with scarcity of donor hearts and tissue compatibility would just go away, and the main constraint on heart transplants would become the availability of a cardiac surgeon. Far fewer people would die while they were on a waiting list, and there would be much less incentive to drop anyone healthy enough to survive the surgery off the list entirely.
Rare humanity win.
