A 15-year-old boy in Italy has received an artificial heart, after a 10-hour operation by Rome's Bambino Gesu Children's Hospital. It’s the first time that the procedure has ever been performed on a child, the hospital says.
Artificial hearts are mostly used on a temporary basis to keep the patient alive until a suitable organ transplant can be found and performed.
For example, the world’s first artificial heart -- which was placed into Haskell Carp’s chest in 1969 -- was only kept in place for 64 hours. The donated organ was then swapped in and the operation was a success, signalling a future for the medical technology.
But the boy’s condition (Duchenne muscular dystrophy) meant that a long wait would be impossible, so the artificial organ would have to be implemented permanently.
The device -- an electrically activated hydraulic pump -- is four inches long and weighs 400 grams. It receives its power from an external belt-held battery that’s charged every night, and connects to the device by a cable that runs up to the teenager’s left ear.
Having it fully implemented in the boy’s chest means its far less likely to suffer infections. “The risks of infection are indeed the primary cause of failure of the alternatives tested to date worldwide,” said Antonio Amodeo, the lead member of the hospital’s cardiac team.
Amodeo claims that the success of the operation means future therapeutic implications are huge, and an artificial heart can increase the life expectancy of a patient with a cardiac disease by as much as 20 to 25 years.