For the first time, an intra-thoracic artificial heart has been permanently implanted on a pediatric patient. The surgery has been performed in Rome by the cardiac-surgery team of the Bambino Gesù Children’s Hospital on a 15-year old boy with a general disease, which made him non-eligible for heart transplant waiting list.
This is why the Hospital team has decided to offer the young patient the only possible therapeutic option to stop the degenerative process which would shortly lead him to death. Thus, this is not a temporary solution waiting for the possibility for heart transplant, but the final and permanent therapeutic solution.
The surgery has been started on Friday, September the 8th, at 8:00am and completed at 6:00pm with the implantation of an artificial heart – 2 inch long – inside the left ventricle, and its connection with the descending aorta. The device – an electrically activated hydraulic pump, is entirely located inside the thorax, in order to reduce the risk of infection.
Power supply is provided through a plug positioned behind the left auricle and connected to the battery that the patient holds at the belt.
This surgery wide opens new perspectives in medicine and gives hope to patients with heart disease and waiting for heart transplant as the only possible solution, as well as to patients – like this 15-year old boy – who cannot be transplant candidates.
Up till now, this intervention has been performed only on adult patients. The peculiarities of the technological and surgical solution used by the Bambino Gesù Team mainly consist in the reduced invasiveness of the device and in its modalities of electric supply, which dramatically reduce the risk of infection, main cause of failure in all alternative procedures experimented in the world.
Due to the general conditions of the patient, and the innovative character of the procedure, the prognosis is still strictly confidential.
I hope this turns out well.
Oh, and for a bit of irony: That hospital belongs to the Vatican.
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This is definitely an interesting development. A lot of people could have their lives saved by this technology if it works. If I were more superstitious, I would probably be already crossing my fingers in my desire for this to succeed.
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I'd like to point out that a 15 year old boy may well be of a full adult size - this patient may be a "child" only by chronological reckoning, not necessarily based on physical development.
And, strictly speaking, it's not an artificial heart, it's an assistive device. Which make it no less valuable and life-saving, but it does sound less sexy than "artificial heart".
A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory.Leonard Nimoy.
Now I did a job. I got nothing but trouble since I did it, not to mention more than a few unkind words as regard to my character so let me make this abundantly clear. I do the job. And then I get paid.- Malcolm Reynolds, Captain of Serenity, which sums up my feelings regarding the lawsuit discussed here.
If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich. - John F. Kennedy
This is pre-WWII. You can sort of tell from the sketch style, from thee way it refers to Japan (Japan in the 1950s was still rebuilding from WWII), the spelling of Tokyo, lots of details. Nothing obvious... except that the upper right hand corner of the page reads "November 1931." --- Simon_Jester
He doesn't know what irony is, so like many people he assumes that every coincidence is ironic. Something you of course had to point out in the most obnoxious way imaginable, grammar nazi!
note: yes, this post is ironic in itself in at least three distinct ways, as I intended.
This is pre-WWII. You can sort of tell from the sketch style, from thee way it refers to Japan (Japan in the 1950s was still rebuilding from WWII), the spelling of Tokyo, lots of details. Nothing obvious... except that the upper right hand corner of the page reads "November 1931." --- Simon_Jester
Skgoa wrote:He doesn't know what irony is, so like many people he assumes that every coincidence is ironic. Something you of course had to point out in the most obnoxious way imaginable, grammar nazi!
note: yes, this post is ironic in itself in at least three distinct ways, as I intended.
You do mean 'she', yes?
[line 2]
DPDarkPrimus is my boyfriend!
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Skgoa wrote:He doesn't know what irony is, so like many people he assumes that every coincidence is ironic. Something you of course had to point out in the most obnoxious way imaginable, grammar nazi!
note: yes, this post is ironic in itself in at least three distinct ways, as I intended.
This is pre-WWII. You can sort of tell from the sketch style, from thee way it refers to Japan (Japan in the 1950s was still rebuilding from WWII), the spelling of Tokyo, lots of details. Nothing obvious... except that the upper right hand corner of the page reads "November 1931." --- Simon_Jester
Great news for the kid, hop eit works out well, as this would seriously help many people, even if they are on the waiting list.
I'll follow that case closely..
Now they only have to boost the performance... *walks away, mumbling about labs and monkeys*
A minute's thought suggests that the very idea of this is stupid. A more detailed examination raises the possibility that it might be an answer to the question "how could the Germans win the war after the US gets involved?" - Captain Seafort, in a thread proposing a 1942 'D-Day' in Quiberon Bay
