Word: mitral
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Dates: during 1952-1952
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...Rubber Pistons. In July, they found their volunteer: a man of 41 whose mitral valve (between the upper and lower quarters of the heart's left side) was not working right because of rheumatic-fever scars. His chest was opened. Through a vein leading from a lung, a tube was slipped into the upper left side of the heart. This drew blood out of the heart to the six-cylinder pump, where fingerlike rubber pistons boosted it on its way. From the pump another tube led the pulsing blood back to the patient's aorta, where it would...
...happened that the patient's heart was so enlarged that Dr. Dodrill could not expose the mitral valve as he had hoped to do. He had to work "blind," with his finger in the heart, manipulating the valve flaps -a standard operation for this condition, performed regularly without a pump. The patient got along fine, and his valve now works better...
Last month, at Georgetown University Medical Center, the young woman (now 30) became the first patient in medical history to be fitted successfully with an artificial aortic valve. (Boston surgeons have slipped a plastic ball into the mitral valve-TIME, March 10). Though she will still have to follow doctor's orders (digitalis, salt rationing and plenty of rest), she is a changed woman-vigorous, gaining strength and hope, and free from the pain of angina...
...Bailey does not believe that the technique can be used in mitral-valve operations, or that it will be much good for older patients whose heart muscles are "worn out." But it gives the surgeon more time and a "dry field" (without blood flow) to operate on young patients whose cases might otherwise be too risky...
...heart patient has a bottleneck in the mitral valve, it can be opened with a tiny knife on the end of the surgeon's finger. But this daring operation will do little good if the valve to the aorta (main artery) is also narrowed, and there has been no way to repair this second defect. Dr. Charles P. Bailey of Philadelphia, who developed the first operation, now has another for opening the aortic valve: he pushes piano wire into the valve through the heart, and uses it as a guide for a spreader which opens the valve...