Word: eiseman
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...cadavers; unlike kidney donors, who have a second kidney to keep them going, no man can donate his liver and live. But the liver has a remarkable ability to regenerate damaged cells and rebuild lost tissue-an ability which suggested to University of Kentucky Surgeon Ben Eiseman that if a diseased human liver could be given a vacation from its vital work, it might rebuild itself sufficiently to start functioning properly once more...
Sound Reasons. But there is no arti ficial liver comparable to the artificial kidney, and there is no hope of devising one soon, because the liver's multiple tasks are even more complex than the kidneys'. Surgeon Eiseman eventually decided to use a pig's liver, and for sound medical reasons: a pig's liver is about the same size as a man's, performs the same functions, is just about the cleanest liver in the animal kingdom...
...complex lab tests, Surgeon Eiseman ran human blood through excised pig livers, and found to his relief that they tolerated all blood types. This encouraged him to try hooking up pig livers to human patients. He and his colleagues chose eight patients in the last stages of liver coma and set up their operations as they would have for transplants. Each time, they removed the pig's liver and placed it in a steel perfusion chamber alongside the patient...
...Kentucky surgeons' patients had two perfusions; one who had three responded well to the first and second. Dr. Eiseman now believes that if pig-liver perfusions can be prolonged to 24 hours, they may be of real help in crises for hepatitis patients and cirrhosis victims who still have a little liver function remaining, and also for transplant recipients immediately after surgery if liver transplants ever become practicable...
...only does delicate and dangerous surgery inside and around the heart, especially in infants, demand exquisite skill in the chief surgeon: he must have equally skilled helpers, and they all need as much practice as he does. "Open-heart surgery," say Dr. Eiseman and Dr. Spencer, "unfortunately has a totally undeserved role as a professional status symbol." It is no field, they add, "for those who follow the fads." In recognition of the problem, cardiologists in smaller cities are beginning to refer more of their patients to the busy surgeons in the big centers...