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Permanent
Portable Pumps
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| Michael
Dorsey relied on an LVAD for eight months until his successful
transplant. |
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For
nearly two decades, mechanical devices designed to assist
- not replace - weakened hearts have helped people stay healthy
while they wait for a donated organ. Called ventricular assist
devices, these pumps take the strain off the heart - most
often the left ventricle, whose job it is to pump oxygen-rich
blood throughout the entire body. Though these devices are
considered "bridges to transplant," they can also help a heart
to heal following open-heart surgery.
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The restful break that LVADs give an ailing heart might
be enough to essentially "cure" heart disease in some
people.
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Furthermore,
there is some evidence that the restful break these pumps
give an ailing heart might be enough to essentially "cure"
heart disease in some people. In August 2000, California-based
Thoratec Laboratories reported that some thirty to forty patients
appear to have recovered from their heart disease while using
the company's HeartMate Left Ventricular Assist Device System
(LVAS).
"It
was originally thought [heart disease] was completely irreversible,"
says David Farrar, head of Research and Development at Thoratec.
"Now people are starting to work on how to find out who's
going to recover and who's not."
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Surgeons
prepare to attach an L-VAD to a patient's weakened left
ventricle. |
In
March 2002, after promising results from an exhaustive three-year
clinical trial, Thoratec sought FDA approval for the HeartMate
VE LVAS as "destination therapy," that is, as long-term support
for heart failure patients ineligible for transplant. Approval
is pending, but preliminary data suggests that more than a
quarter of heart failure patients could benefit from the device
- a success rate four times higher than that of drug therapy
- if borne out.
Several
other models of ventricular assist devices are making their
way to the marketplace through animal testing and clinical
human trials. Smaller, more reliable and easier to power,
these devices offer new hope to hundreds of thousands of heart
failure patients who run out of options each year. 
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