Artificial Hearts: Going Beyond Human Evolution

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Artificial Hearts Going Beyond Human Evolution

• Jon Goldberg

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Functionality of the Heart

• Maintains flow of blood throughout body
• Supplies nutrients and oxygen
• Waste transport
• Pumps via muscle contraction relaxation to
  push blood

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Diagram of the Heart
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Problems to Solve

• Heart Failure
• Systolic Dysfunction
• Heart does not contract with enough force less
  oxygen-rich blood.
• Diastolic Dysfunction
• Heart contracts, but ventricles do not relax/are
  stiff less blood enters the heart.

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How to Solve

• Complete heart replacement
• Mimic pumping action of natural hearts
• Big and bulky. Mechanical pumping is hard to
  pull off.
• Requires a lot of equipment.
• Heart assistance
• VAD (Ventricular Assistance Device )
• Left and/or right ventricular assistance.

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The LVAD
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The Pros of the LVAD

• Extremely portable.
• Relieves stress on heart. Allows it to perform
  some repairs.
• Continuously Flowing requires no pumping.

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The Cons

• Requires blood thinners to use.
• Unplanned hospital readmission
• Infections
• Device malfunction
• Little full-heart-replacement testing

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The Full Replacement Story

• Young Central-African man receives a LVAD in
  response to heart failure.
• Goes missing for 8 months.
• Comes back, heart has failed. Has been living
  the past months with nothing but the LVAD.

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The Full Replacement Story Cont.

• Dr. Billy Cohn and Dr. Bud Frazier push the LVAD
  to full replacement.
• Takes 38 calves hearts out.

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The Future

• Full heart replacement looks promising.
• Needs more testing enhancements
• 600,000 people die each year due to heart
  failure.
• Dr. Cohn and Dr. Frazier are pushing the
  Heartmate II.
• More experimentation with the Archimedes Screw
  design.
• Less mimicking of natural pumping, more
  experimenting with human innovation.

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References

• http//www.medicinenet.com/heart_failure/page3.htm
  
• http//www.heartfailurematters.org/EN/Understandin
  gHeartFailure/Pages/Whatarethedifferenttypesofhear
  tfailure.aspx
• http//www.medicotips.com/2010/06/died-of-hear-att
  ack.html
• http//www.webmd.com/heart-disease/treating-left-v
  entricular-device
• http//www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/health-topics/topi
  cs/vad/
• http//www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/health-topics/topi
  cs/tah/
• http//content.onlinejacc.org/article.aspx?article
  id1204944
• http//abcnews.go.com/Health/texas-man-pioneers-be
  atless-heart-wave-future/story?id13838596
• http//www.voanews.com/content/doctors-achieve-mil
  estone-using-artificial-heart-with-no-beat-1250854
  99/171541.html
• http//www.cdc.gov/heartdisease/facts.htm