Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Strategies & Market Trends : Steve's Channelling Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Logain Ablar who wrote (29109)	9/28/2001 11:21:23 PM
From: Mark Johnson	Respond to of 30051

Third artificial heart patient recovering well By C. Bryson Hull HOUSTON, Sept 28 (Reuters) - The man who became the third patient to receive with the world's first self-contained artificial heart could be up and walking within days, Texas cardiac surgeons said on Friday. Doctors at the Texas Heart Institute at St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital in Houston said the patient was alert and resting comfortably since being implanted with the AbioCor artificial heart during a six-hour operation on Wednesday. Lead surgeon Dr. O.H. Frazier said the patient, whose name is being withheld for 30 days, was expected to be taken off a breathing machine Friday and could be walking next week. ``It couldn't have gone more smoothly or perfectly from a technical standpoint,'' said Frazier, who has been working to develop artificial hearts for 15 years. ``This patient would never have left the hospital alive without this effort.'' The titanium and plastic device, made by Abiomed Inc. (NasdaqNM:ABMD - news) of Danvers, Mass., is the first major advance in the development of an artificial heart in nearly two decades. It has no exterior wires and its outboard battery passes power through the skin without piercing it. An implanted control device adjusts the motorized heartbeat, and it has an internal, rechargeable 30-minute reserve battery. Dr. Reynolds Delgado, the patient's cardiologist, said the man ``couldn't walk, he couldn't even speak without gasping for air.'' The purpose of the AbioCor trial is to prove the mechanical heart can keep a patient who was expected to die within 30 days alive for at least 60 days. That has been the case with the first man to receive the heart, 59-year-old Robert Tools. Tools received his on July 2 at Jewish Hospital in Louisville, Ky., and has since taken walks in the park and can change his heart battery. The second patient, 70-year-old Tom Christerson, received his implant there on Sept. 13 and is recovering well, his doctors report. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has allowed for five of the devices to be implanted in the initial clinical trials. Frazier said he did not want to predict a timeline for FDA approval of the AbioCor, but said it would probably take 15-20 successful implantations.