Man with no pulse: How turbines can replace a heart-Video

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You no longer need a heartbeat to be alive. In a groundbreaking surgery last year, doctors William Cohn and Bud Frazier from the Texas Heart Institute in Houston replaced a dying man's heart with twin turbines, resulting in a living person without a pulse.

In this short film called Heart Stop Beating, directed by Jeremiah Zagar, you can follow the revolutionary procedure. Compared to artificial hearts that mimic real ones, the device is thought to be much more durable, since it has no flexible membranes or complex twisting mechanisms. "No one has been able to make a self-contained pulsatile device that can last more than two years or so and most wear out sooner," says Cohn.

The device is not yet approved for use but Cohn says they are currently developing a study protocol so that they can try to use it again. Although Craig Lewis, the 55-year-old patient, died five weeks later, it was due to underlying disease and doctors claimed the device was still working perfectly.

Although technology can be used to replicate a heart's functions, researchers are also looking into growing new hearts from scratch. In cases where a heart is not too badly damaged, it's also possible for it to mend itself with the right stimulation. You can find out more in our recent full-length feature, "Coaxing the heart to heal itself".

If you enjoyed this post, check out a hybrid heart made to beat again by recoating it with foreign stem cells or see the first completely artificial heart to be implanted in a human.


Source: www.newscientist.com