Word: ventricular
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...surgeon Dr. Michael DeBakey when he had an idea: What about using the technology in the pump that powers the space shuttle to create a heart pump for patients? Saucier talked to Baylor College of Medicine physicians, and for almost two decades NASA and DeBakey worked on a mini ventricular device. The size of a pink beveled eraser, it helps adults and children survive for up to two years while awaiting a transplant...
That's why it's such good news to hear that another type of mechanical pump, called a left ventricular assist device, may be a viable alternative. Instead of replacing the heart entirely, the lvad attaches to the organ's left main chamber, boosting its output. The pump is twice as likely as drugs to keep patients alive after one year, according to a study that was published in the New England Journal of Medicine and presented last week at the American Heart Association meeting...
Meanwhile, doctors have had growing success with a different kind of mechanical pump, called a left ventricular assist device (LVAD), that is also implanted in the body but helps boost the heart's output without replacing the organ. In some cases the ailing heart gets enough rest on the LVAD that it no longer needs artificial support. Researchers are trying to figure out if they can nudge that process along, perhaps by using stem cells to stimulate healing...
...that kept his heartbeat regular, in 1998, doctors had to apply an electrical current across his chest on three different occasions to get his heartbeat back to normal. But such interventions are routine; they are nothing like the drama-charged ER version. Those are applied only in cases of ventricular fibrillation--a type of irregular heartbeat that is different from the kind Bradley has and more dangerous because it occurs in the two chambers of the heart that do the actual pumping. Bradley's heart settled back into its normal rhythm last week even before he reached the hospital...
American surgeons like McCarthy have brought a level of scientific professionalism to Batista's procedure. To be sure, the greatest benefit of U.S. hospitals is the state-of-the-art postoperative care. American doctors also offer a safety net for patients by placing them on a left-ventricular assist device that helps the heart pump blood into the body if the procedure fails. In addition, McCarthy has somewhat changed the procedure. Where Batista does his work on a beating heart, McCarthy stops the heart so he can make cleaner cuts (a common practice in open-heart surgery...