False heart implants ‘gimmicks’

Press, 18 June 1986, Page 28

False heart implants ‘gimmicks’

NZPA-Reuter New York Mechanical heart implants are gimmicks that are no substitute for human hearts in chronically ill cardiovascular patients, according to a leading heart transplant specialist. “To be anywhere comparable to the transplant, a mechanical heart has to be totally implantable and driven by an inexhaustable, non-heat producing power source,” Dr Norman Shumway told the science magazine, “Discover.” “Well, we don’t have anything like that,” he said. •’ v “From what I have seen so far the mechanical heart is nothing more than a marketing and advertising gimmick.” Dr Shumway, who has transplanted more hearts than any other American surgeon, said unresolved problems with technology and blood clotting have made mechanical hearts failures. Engineers have yet to devise “a truly satisfactory heart valve, and the artificial needs four such valves.” Five persons have

received permanent mechanical hearts since the first was implanted in a Utah dentist, Barney Clark, in 1982. Two, William Schroeder and Murray Haydon, are still alive. Mr Schroeder has had a series of strokes which have left him near speechless and Mr Haydon is dependent on a respirator .more than a year after surgery. Dr Shumway, who performed the first heart transplant in the United States in 1968, said 147 of the 383 people his team has performed the procedure on are still alive.