French Team Implants First Long-Term Artificial Heart 106
TrueSatan writes "Physicians at the Georges Pompidou European Hospital in Paris have inserted a heart made by the French Carmat company. The heart features bovine tissue components used to reduce the clot forming tendencies of fully artificial units and is intended to allow greater freedom of movement to the patient than previous, short-term use, units permitted. It is powered by external, wearable, lithium-ion batteries and is approximately three times heavier than a typical (European) human heart, though the manufacturer intends to reduce the weight and size of the unit so as to allow use by smaller recipients — in particular most women and men from areas of the world where average body size is less than white/Caucasian averages."
Medical innovations from damn socialists!! NOOOOOO (Score:1, Funny)
It's all Obama's fault.
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I would also point out that the heart was made by a French COMPANY. It was merely installed by a university hospital.
Of course maybe the company that made it is in bed with the French Government, which might bring prudence to the idea that 'socialism did this'. But I doubt that given that socialism hates innovation, as a general rule.
Re: Medical innovations from damn socialists!! NOO (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm French. France is definitely socialist, and so-called innovations happened in spite of that, not because of it. True capitalism is the best thing that could happen to France.
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Well even if I, a so called 'EVIL TEA BAG NAZI' (somewhat ironic given that I DON'T support the TEA party) is willing to say that straight up capitalistic isn't the answer and more than socialism is. In all things there should be a balance. One of the big different between socialism and capitalism is that at least in the later there's real evidence that it just works better. There as in socialism you ends up with a lot of promises and no real results.
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France just had a hardcore capitalist president w
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I was just pointing out that not all of the French agree to what the above poster said.
The funny thing is that while Sarkozy is considered hardcore rightwing in France, in the US he would probably be considered a democrat. That's just how different the two countries are.
I am a former researcher affiliated to a CNRS laboratory and I am now an entrepreneur with an innovative start-up. Without the incentives (which are relatively hard to get, unreliable and require a tremendous amount of effort and paperwork),
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Well good on them for finding something that works. And at the end of the day that's what I want to see. Things that work. Sometimes socialism works. That 5% of the time it works great. The rest of the time it usually ends up being a textbook example of now NOT to do things. And as expected the average socialist will harp about these success stories incessantly.
Oh... as an FYI 'high speed rail' is a garbage idea for the US, the space race only happened because the USSR wanted to prove that they wanted
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As another proud Canadian who knows people in the Hospital system and has taken advantage of emergency surgery, one legitimate complaint about our system is that cronic, non-life-threatening problems tend to end up at the bottom of the waiting list. I know someone in that situation (back problems to the point of not being able to leave the house) and they have to wait 6 months just to get x-rays.
This is mostly caused by a lack of facilities and personel, so it basically just means that instead of the poor g
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If he had chronic back problems that prevented him from leaving the house, the x-ray was probably of minimal benefit and only done just in case. How much new insight was gained when he did get it and what improvement did it lead to?
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It sounds like the 6 month wait is more the natural course of treatment than any sort of rationing. It takes time to recover from a surgery and to see what it's ultimate result will be. The back in particular can take months to heal from any injury including surgery. Meanwhile, sorry to say, back surgery has a fairly poor success rate in the first place.
This doesn't sound at all like a failure to provide care. In the U.S. he would be charged a fortune to get probably worse results if he could afford it and
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Actually, socialized medicine tends to provide quality healthcare. It's our screwed up high cost system that tends to be sub-par. Even more so if your insurance runs out.
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I guess that's why the U.S., by any measure, has the lousiest medical care in the developed world.
That's absolutely amazing. (Score:2)
Seriously, once in a while I like to kind of just take these sort of advancements at face value. It's just astonishing to me that we are so close to alleviating at least one facet of the organ transplant shortages that have so many people waiting for so long in uncertainty. This day could not get here fast enough and I hope that it becomes a true milestone down a great path for medical technology.
But damn that is an expensive pump.
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Re:Heart sizes? (Score:4, Funny)
a typical (European) human heart
. . . no, African or European . . . that determines if the recipient can migrate while carrying a coconut.
Think it through (Score:2)
Powered by external batteries? So if you run out of juice, you die? Is that it?
Some replacement heart systems have a hand-operated backup pump. If the battery dies, the user can pump a lever to keep hydraulic pressure up and keep the heart working - long enough to get to a hospital.
I couldn't tell from the Carmat website [carmatsa.com] whether their system has this type of backup, but medical device manufacturers tend to do "failure analysis" and make efforts to avoid the obvious problems.
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- long enough to get to a hospital.
Or the closest Batteries Plus....
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If the alternative is not having one of these to keep you alive your perspective might change.
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I believe he's saying he's 100% sure it's better than death.
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You'll have to take that up with him.
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Jason Statham already dealt with this:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1121931/ [imdb.com]
Barney Clark (Score:1)
Barney Clark - Sometimes used for the name of a cheeseburger with bacon and a fried egg on top, but also the 85th recipient (according to Wikipedia) of a long-term artificial heart in 1982. He only survived about 4 months, but that wasn't the plan. The second recipient of the Jarvic heart lived almost 2 years.
Short-term artificial hearts have been implanted since the 60's. Long term (long being a relative term) implants have been going on for a long time.
Pulsatile vs Pulse-less Designs (Score:5, Informative)
In modern times, Artificial Heart designs have been diverging into two camps. This one belongs to the old-school cardiac mimics -- complex multi-chamber pumps designed to mimic the pulsatile flow of a natural heart. The bovine pericardium lining is a clever idea -- we already make bio-prosthetic valves (mostly from pig heart valves). As the material is non-living connective tissue, it doesn't raise the same acute rejection problems that living xeno-grafts have. And, while most patients with such valves still require permanent treatment with drugs to prevent clots, the required degree of anti-coagulation is much less than those required with mechanical valves.
The other school consists of the pulse-less turbine-type devices. Instead of mimicking a natural heart, these devices use a high-speed rotating impeller to drive fluid flow. It was once thought that the shearing forces of an impeller would result in too much damage to red blood cells, and that pulsatile flow of blood was a necessary feature physiological feature, but non-pulsatile later-generation Ventricular Assistive Devices have demonstrated this is not the case. Currently, all such devices are only used as adjuncts to a failing natural heart, and there are no such devices approved as complete replacements -- yet. Compared with their more complex cousins, these devices are smaller and lighter, and mechanically more robust. However, they suffer from issues with clots and damage to leukocytes, due to the artificial materials used.
In either case, it will be interesting to see how the devices performs out in the field. The expected Five-year lifespan of a unit doesn't sound like much, but keep in mind many patients will be elderly, and your goal may simply be to give them improved quality-of-life, until in a few years something else kills them instead.
Re:Pulsatile vs Pulse-less Designs (Score:4, Funny)
The turbine devices would be great for confusing first-aid people.
"I can't feel a pulse!"
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The turbine devices would be great for confusing first-aid people.
"I can't feel a pulse!"
Kinda hard to miss the battery and the wires going into ones chest!
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Re:Pulsatile vs Pulse-less Designs (Score:4, Insightful)
I always found that split in artificial heart design interesting and analogous to flapping vs fixed wing in aircraft design.
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The expected Five-year lifespan of a unit doesn't sound like much, but keep in mind many patients will be elderly, and your goal may simply be to give them improved quality-of-life, until in a few years something else kills them instead.
They article states that
The longest a patient has lived with SynCardia's heart is just under four years.
That means it's not a small stap in increasing the lifespan.
Why stop with an straight artifical replacement? (Score:2, Insightful)
Seriously... why try to replicate the original heart design when you could make something so much better? And why just ONE heart? What kind of engineer came up with this design? You'd do better to have MULTIPLE hearts pushing blood through your body. I'd have no less than three in me, if i had the option.
I think that was an option in a CyberPunk book. Replacing the heart with a system of small blood pumps located throughout the body. That sounds good to me.
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I'd make a few improvements myself too. Like installing sphincters on the brachial and femoral arteries that can constrict in the event of extreme trauma. It would substantially improve survival rate in serious accidents.
One heart can be enough, but it'd better be a very reliable heart. No single points of failure where a clot or blockage can cause the whole thing to shut down.
Better hearts (Score:2)
Like installing sphincters on the brachial and femoral arteries that can constrict in the event of extreme trauma.
That already happens naturally. In case of some extreme trauma (like accidental amputation), there is massive vasoconstriction at the site of the severed limb, which lowers a bit the loss of blood and increase chance of survival.
One heart can be enough, but it'd better be a very reliable heart. No single points of failure {...}
The best way to be reliable against single point of failure is to have redundancy.
hum... RAID-6 Hearts system anyone ?
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The heart's fatal (literally) flaw is in its own blood supply. Lots of critical points - if either coronary artery is blocked, failure will occur immediately. Likewise for all of their branches. That's a common failure mode. A better-designed heart would be able to operate if any single component failed, though perhaps at a reduced capacity until the patient could be hurried to hospital for repair.
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It's definitely not a new idea...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FInoU0wzgzY [youtube.com]
Fantastic news! (Score:3, Funny)
Now I can finally realize my dream of faithfully reenacting having a Nausicaan skewer me through the back in a bar fight...although I'm not sure I'll have the presence of mind to laugh deliriously afterward.
And remember... (Score:1)
they care.
3 times heavier than a typical European heart (Score:2)
Sweet! (Score:1)
Where can I apply to be a repo man?
What's the cost now and in 10 years? (Score:1)
Reading the article and seeing how expensive it is (around $200,000) to get, it seems like it would make healthcare more expensive. I suppose many new devices have very high costs at first (lots of R&D and low volume), but not all of them start out at 6 figures! Do insurance companies end up paying for this? I totally support advancing our medical capabilities, but the US spends wayyy too much on healthcare already.
keep the original in good working order (Score:2)
In the US, about 70% of cardiovascular disease is caused by obesity, and even more is probably preventable by good nutrition. It's better to keep the original in good working order than to try to replace it.
And now that we all are forced to pay for each other's medical care, this is also a question of money. Why should people who eat healthy and don't have these risks pay for the high cost of artificial hearts (or heart transplants) in people who made poor nutritional choices?
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Because, of course, a single anecdotal piece of evidence disproves decades of health care statistics and dozens of scientific studies!
It's easy to tell whether someone is obese (or drinks or smokes). If you are obese, you sho
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If you want people to make better nutritional choices, you should support increasing the minimum wage and encourage shorter working hours. When people have enough time and money. they make better choices.
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That couldn't possibly be because they're dead tired from scratching to make a living, could it?
Combine that with parents having no time to teach their kids how to prepare good food and no opportunity to develope a proper taste for good food and you've got a real problem.
Consider the sad irony of Wallmart employees needing a food drive to be able to afford a Thanksgiving dinner and then not being given a day off to actually cook it and enjoy.
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No, it couldn't. My parents both worked far more than 40h, and so do we. We always cook.
And giving people free healthcare and artificial hearts is going to fix that... how? It's not, it's going to make it worse.
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So what is your final solution? Have the dept of sanitation toss them in the truck when they drop dead?
I'm guessing neither you nor your parents still couldn't make ends meet after that more than 40 hours.
We always cook here as well, but then we don't have eviction notices hanging over us.
Also note, my suggestion was to raise the minimum wage and encourage shorter working hours. That leads to better choices and reduces the need for healthcare.
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What is your "final solution"? Subject people to Mengele-like experimentation on their bodies to extend their lives by another few weeks or months, usually in agonizing pain, and then have the tax payer pay huge amounts of money to hospitals, insurance companies, and big pharmaceuticals for the privilege? Make them dependent for a lifetime on expensive, proprietary drugs produced by big corporations that a
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Correction: "Even in the US, there is no correlation between income, education, and obesity for men (and for women it's pretty weak)"
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I don't know why you're so obsessed with the medical thing, I never said a damned thing about it.
For the rest, you very carefully guided yourself around my actual claim making sure not to touch it. I called for more pay **AND** less hours. Americans get less vacation than most of the free world. Except, of course, those who have no job. They are short on money for the most part.
As for SNAP, it offers a very minimum budget to avoid actual starvation and not much more. The few congressmen who actually accepte
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You can call for whatever you want to, there is not a shred of evidence that that would do anything to reduce obesity or improve health; it's complete fabrication on your part.
It's called the supplemental nutrition assistance program for a reason: you're not supposed to live on i
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Americans also take home a lot more money than most of the free world. If you want a French or German lifestyle, you can choose to work less, spend less, and earn less. What you can't do is get European-style vacations and benefits, with American-style disposable income and spending habits.
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The class we're talking about (people working but eligible for SNAP) don't make enough money to have the European lifestyle and have none of the benefits. When comparing incomes, it's only fair to factor in expenses that the Europeans don't have because it's covered out of their taxes.
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You said "Americans get less vacation than most of the free world." That's not a statement about SNAP recipients, it's about Americans. And it's a lousy comparison because Americans also get paid better.
Your statements and comparisons about SNAP are equally stupid. European nations don't have SNAP, and their unemployment and disability benefits are generally stingy.
And to top it all off you write nonsense like this: "When comparing incomes, it's only fair to factor in expenses that the Europeans don't have
Think of all the job opportunties (Score:2)
It is (...) approximately three times heavier than a typical (European) human heart>/quote> This guy can now work as one of those specialists that break bad news to people ('you're fired', 'the operation was not a success', 'Paul Walker died', 'your son was KIA').
No lying when he says: "It's with a heavy heart that I inform you that..."
Venticular Assist Devices defacto artificial heart (Score:2)
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Yes, but it's not polite to acknowledge them right now. Once the legacy of racism is well and truely over, then there will be no need for the taboo.
No such thing as "inferior" race (Score:2)
(e.g., the black race -may- have smaller IQ)
That is bollocks. From an evolution point of view, there can't be such a thing as an inferior race. Evolution is about the survival of the fittest. If it has survived until today, it is indeed the fittest for its environment. What you will only end up is with some small local variation due to slight adaptation to some environmental factors that might be a little bit more frequently encountered by some sub-group than others. But these are not set in stone. We are all the same specie, meaning (by definition)
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Race is just race - dogs of different races cross-breed since they are all dogs, humans do the same, but, as dogs, they have some differences between races, with IQ been one of them.
Since when do dogs have races?
I stand by my opinion (Score:2)
IQ -when tested right- is not related to education or similar external factors so much but mostly to biological factors such as the brain's size and evolution (or the lack of it).
emphasis added by me.
in theory a perfect IQ test should only test biological factors (of which, belonging to a specific ethnic groups end up not having a strong impact after scrutinity of study results).
in practice it has been shown that some IQ test *are imperfect* and inadvertently have cultural biases (thus showing strong segregation between ethnic groups even if not revealing actual difference in intellect).
That "survival of the fittest" does not exclude lower IQ people/races when that IQ, even if low, is good enough.
And how would a "lower IQ" trait survive the first occurence of cross-breeding ?
"Good enough" mea
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Yep, once all of those European goyim have been genocided by our agenda of mass-immigration, multiculturalism, feminism, and homosexuality into Western European countries, and only Western European countries, we'll finally be able to live in a progressive world free of hate and bigotry.
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Yes, it shall be like the good old days of the USSR. And those people who don't agree will be sent to reeducation camps in Siberia, and if that doesn't help, to insane asylums; after all, you'd have to be insane not to want to live in our "progressive world free of hate and bigotry".
Re:THAT'S RACIST!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
So, -biological- differences between -biological- races (yes, races...) do exist - like the size of the heart, the dick... the brain!?
In all three cases, it's not the size that counts, it's what you do with it.
Biological diversity vs. Racism (Score:2)
Yes, there is indeed biological diversity between humans.
The big difference is what you do out of this information.
The scientific/biological interpretation:
there are difference between various ethnic groups (the political correct way to speak about "biological races"). These might have some impact in some medical/biological situation (i.e.: average size of organs like this, or frequency of the ability to metabolise alcohol or milk, baseline availabilty of UV-resistance pigments in the skin, etc.) but beside
Not found in study (Score:2)
As I, too, have mentionned elsewhere.
The black -the "usual suspect", since it's the most problematic- race (easily defined based on biology-anthropology) have some -bad, problematic- characteristics.
This is not shown in actual studies.
Most of the studies (for exemple looking at children adopted by different families) tend not to show a genetic component to IQ (all people of black ethnic group being of lower IQ independent of up-bringing or something like that).
A studies few have been shown to have been based on broken IQ tests.
Most of the studies show that the IQ in late life heavily depends on the upbringing from an early age. A child, no matter the ethnic group, a