[HN Gopher] Man given genetically modified pig heart dies ___________________________________________________________________ Man given genetically modified pig heart dies Author : otoolep Score : 233 points Date : 2022-03-09 15:39 UTC (7 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.bbc.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com) | krallja wrote: | Man Given Genetically Modified Pig Heart Survives Two Months | slowhand09 wrote: | My friend was a member of the transplant team at Johns Hopkins. | "They" said he was near multiple organ failure prior to the | transplant. And he survived significantly longer than expected. | Recovery under those circumstances was a very long shot already. | Kudos to him for undergoing the procedure, and furthering the | research. Condolences to he and his family. | nonrandomstring wrote: | It's an amazing story of which your friend must be tremedously | proud. Now that it's been done, no doubt the results will | improve. What an amazing time to be alive seeing these leaps in | medicine. I think the pandemic has, in part, really made | biology and medicine super cool again. | sonicggg wrote: | Choosing a guy next to his deathbed is not the greatest PR | move. People will associate the death to the transplant. | harles wrote: | I'm glad this team was more concerned about science and | minimizing risk than PR. Hopefully negative press doesn't | cause much of a hinderance. | phkahler wrote: | Well that really raises the question of what did he die from? | If not from the heart, how do they proceed with the research? | Gotta do the next one on a person whose not already nearly | gone. That seems like a highly sensitive line, no doubt it's a | big discussion to move it. | diego_sandoval wrote: | My uneducated guess: | | If he had survived for a long time, we would have known that | it worked. He didn't survive, so we didn't learn much. | | If we try with enough people who are as critical as him, | eventually one could survive and we would know that the | procedure works for at least some people. | Jabbles wrote: | "What people die of" seems like the sort of question the | medical community should be quite good at answering. | | People are waiting for human heart transplants and dying from | the wait. I don't think there will be a shortage of patients | who we can ethically treat whilst researching this new | technique. It certainly isn't binary with a hard "sensitive | line". | gpm wrote: | > "What people die of" seems like the sort of question the | medical community should be quite good at answering. | | Does it? I'm definitely not a doctor, but it seems like a | very difficult question to answer. | | Even with perfect information, it seems unlikely there is | always a simple/single answer. I would naively expect | things like (and I'm making a bit up here, because I'm | really not a doctor) "not enough oxygen reached his cells, | because his lungs were bad at refreshing the air in them, | his heart was bad at pumping blood in circles, his veins | and arteries were in bad shape due to diet, and he wasn't | moving around much because he had a cold further reducing | circulation". | | But also, we don't have perfect information. We have this | set of measurements we could make without harming the | patient, or consuming too much time on really expensive | equipment like MRIs. Many of those measurements are no | doubt themselves subject to some degree of interpretation | error and confounding factors. | | Maybe I underestimate our doctors, or ovesestimate the | problem, but it doesn't sound easy to me. | data_acquired wrote: | One of Atul Gawande's books (Complications) mentions that | amongst deaths where an autopsy is done, the cause of | death was misdiagnosed by the doctor about 40% of the | time. Quote from book [Page 197, Chapter name : "Final | Cut"] --- | | "How often do autopsies turn up a major misdiagnosis in | the cause of death? I would have guessed this happened | rarely, in 1 or 2 percent of cases at most. According to | three studies done in 1998 and 1999, however, the figure | is about 40 percent." | rurp wrote: | I think 100 years from now people will look back on our | current medicine the same way we view medicine from 100 | years ago. There is some impressive progress, but we know | less than we think we do and conduct a lot of wasteful | and harmful procedures. | | It's disturbing to learn how thin the evidence is for a | lot of modern medical operations. For example, the | recommendations for certain cancer screenings have | actually been reduced in recent years after it was found | they were causing net harm. | phkahler wrote: | That's why I'm noticing studies that use "all cause | mortality". In other words, some people receive X | treatment and a similar control group does not. Then you | look at how many died in each group _regardless of cause_ | because it 's just too difficult (and death is pretty | much a binary measure). For example, cholesterol lowering | drugs (I don't have a source) seem to have no impact on | all-cause-mortality, suggesting a failure in our | understanding. | rurp wrote: | Certain invasive cancer treatments can look a lot more | effective than they really are, if all cause mortality | isn't measured. It's possible to reduce the risk of a | patient dying from the particular cancer they have while | also lowering their overall life expectancy, since the | procedure itself can be extremely harmful. | cannaceo wrote: | They're not. Attribution is difficult. | subsubzero wrote: | That was my biggest question too. patients die all the time | after receiving a human organ transplant just due to the body | being in a poor state and/or rejecting the organ. So it was | either that case in which even if he received a human heart | the same outcome of him dying would have happened. Or it was | the pig heart that was the problem. Hopefully it can be | determined which case happened, and I am glad he got to spend | a few more months with his family. | dheera wrote: | Well also, condolences to Edward Shumaker, who he murdered, and | Edward's family. [0] | | [0] https://www.wionews.com/world/patient-in-ground-breaking- | hea... | [deleted] | verisimi wrote: | heyoni wrote: | Which is probably how they got approval to do a pig heart | transplant in the first place since he would never get on the | transplant list. | shadowgovt wrote: | > Exactly what has happened since and the precise cause of Mr | Bennett's death is not clear. | | Which is the most useful information (next to the actual end of a | human life here). | | Did he die because the heart was ultimately rejected, or did he | die from underlying complications that had made him ineligible | for a human heart transplant in the first place? | | If the latter, I'd still call this whole story a significant | success and a possible step on the road to providing more | transplants for people worldwide who won't survive without a new | heart. | mateo1 wrote: | Yeah, I hate the clickbaity choice of putting this information | near the end of the article. This is bbc, I expect better. | notadoc wrote: | Porcine biologics have generally underperformed expectations, | often with neutral clinical effectiveness. | loudtieblahblah wrote: | thehappypm wrote: | dang wrote: | Please don't break the site guidelines, regardless of how | wrong another comment is or you feel it is. | | https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html | ceejayoz wrote: | Similarly, the first human heart transplant patient only lasted | 18 days. It's proof of concept, not the final iteration. | melling wrote: | "Currently 17 people die every day in the US waiting for a | transplant, with more than 100,000 reportedly on the waiting | list." | | David Bennett was only 57. Heart disease, and related issues are | a big problem. | | While I'm hopeful for this technology, I wish there was a way for | people to see heart issues coming much earlier in life so they | can attempt to treat, or delay, the problem. | fredsmith219 wrote: | Having trouble taking satisfactory breaths while laying flat? | See a doctor. Feeling out of breath abnormally while working | out? See a doctor. Got an Apple Watch? Just for kicks take your | ekg. It is crude but can detect abnormal heart rhythms. | MPSimmons wrote: | You probably know this, but for anyone else reading - I have | an Apple watch that has the EKG. It is a two-contact EKG, so | it's limited in what it can see. It also requires you to | actively look at it (you have to touch the crown while it's | reading). | | It did successfully diagnose a bout of bigeminy that I had, | but unfortunately my cardiologist didn't think it was | important, and I ended up having a heart attack anyway. But I | lived, and now I have a new cardiologist, so there's that. | faeyanpiraat wrote: | Isn't that something that you could sue for? | als0 wrote: | I do wonder how it must feel to be a doctor who is one | bad call away from being sued or revoked. | [deleted] | kyleee wrote: | what's the alternative in practice; having no recourse if | a negligent doctor maims or kills you? | cbg0 wrote: | Is it just me or is this such a stereotypical American | comment? | frenchy wrote: | Maybe in the US, probably not anywhere else. You'd have | to prove actual negligence, and in this case, it's quite | possible the doctor's decision was reasonable. Benign | abnormal heart behavior is pretty common. | wonderwonder wrote: | Not a lawyer so this is only anecdotal but It is actually | very hard to sue a doctor unless its egregious to my | understanding and your rewards are limited to the point | where most lawyers are hesitant to take the case due to | that. Have a family member that got a colonoscopy and the | doctor commented after that there was a bit of a tough | time getting it in but he just pushed a little harder and | all was fine. That push actually perforated the bowel and | he got sepsis and spent 3 weeks in the hospital and many | months with a coloscopy bag. No lawyer would take the | case. | dt3ft wrote: | Or, change the way they live, work less and enjoy what little | life they have ahead? | hombre_fatal wrote: | Well, we certainly do set up people for [heart] failure in | our culture. Standard American diet is atrocious and I often | day-dream about what it might take to transition to a culture | around healthy, whole foods. | | It's hard to imagine. And looking at the westernizing diet of | the rest of the world, maybe that's a ship that never sails | back. Maybe tech breakthroughs are the only hope we have if | major cultural reform around health and food never arrives. | idontknowifican wrote: | your view indicates a lack of empathy for folks that live | differently than you | DiffEq wrote: | I don't mean to be callous by this comment but if you mean | "live differently" as living unhealthy well I have a | problem with this. People that live in unhealthy ways cause | all sorts of grief to others as well as financial loss. It | is not right that I have to pay for people that decide to | essentially eat themselves to death; it is not right that | my wife and I had to care for my mother for months because | she decided to eat herself to death. Heart disease and | diabetes are all too common "paid" for by others - they | should choose differently and while we can't make them | choose differently we should for sure tell them that their | choices are not "o.k.". | jpatt wrote: | There are a whole host of heart diseases not spurred on | by unhealthy living. Particularly diseases affecting | younger folk who would inordinately benefit from a longer | lifespan if we got better at transplanting. | | As a selfish example, I have ARVC. I was diagnosed at 24 | while training for my first marathon. Lifestyle | treatments for my disease are to explicitly _avoid_ | exercise as it exacerbates the deterioration of my heart | muscle. As I age, I expect to be at a much greater risk | for the heart diseases that you would recommend "healthy | living" for, as I will be categorically barred from one | of the most important pillars of that, exercise. | | I realize we're talking about the margins here, but as a | margin, I would _love_ more advancement in transplants. | ejb999 wrote: | I agree - people need to be able to be called out when | they are making bad decisions - especially w/regards to | their health, and they especially should be called out by | their health care providers - many doctors these days | won't even broach the subject of a patient's weight, for | fear of offending them - and I have seen patients file | formal complaints against doctors when the doctor notes | in their chart that the patient 'is obese'. It is right | to tell them they are obese and it is right to encourage | people to live healthier - how can you be a health care | provider and not be allowed to call out people who are | eating themselves to death? | mulmen wrote: | Living is unhealthy. It's universally fatal. In a free | society we (should) retain autonomy over our bodies. This | isn't purely philosophical, it is practical. Who decides | what is healthy? What if they are wrong? | | How many eggs should I eat today to meet your personal | definition of healthy living? And what do I do when it | differs from someone else? | mrmuagi wrote: | > Living is unhealthy. | | Tips fedora. | | In all seriousness, I think there's obvious medical | definitions for unhealthy in regards to addictions, | weight, etc. Let's not philosophize some libertarian | defense of something that obviously restricts and | constricts one's freedom -- the ability to move an inch | without your joints buckling. | | I can sympathise with you if you have suffered from anti- | fat bullying and adopt defensive attitudes in reaction -- | but what the hell am I reading. | _jal wrote: | Welcome to being an adult. People will do all sorts of | things you think are not "OK", including people you're | attached to. If you have kids, they will, too. | | How we choose to deal with watching people do things we | think they shouldn't is a matter of character. | | I will say that I try hard to listen to people's | criticism with an open mind, but people who badger me | when they know I have considered their position, well, we | tend to spend progressively less time together the more | it happens. There's a difference between sharing | information and punishing people for not complying, and I | see no reason to accept punishment for something I don't | intend to change about myself. A second-best fix for the | problem, but better for everyone concerned. | danielovichdk wrote: | It's only one self that can determine if one self is in | balance or not. Just like we can lie to ourselves telling | "everything is alright" while in truth it's not really | the case. | | But yes, as adults we can determine for ourselves. But | it's a poor character trait not to be responsible for how | you feel. | [deleted] | bob66 wrote: | lostlogin wrote: | How would you apply this to a child, or convey it to their | parents? | | The procedure has a profound effect on the family that | receives the heart and on the donor family. Hearing donor | family members describe what it's like knowing their child's | heart is still beating somewhere is something you don't | forget. | tommoor wrote: | To everyone that reads this: | | If you've not had a checkup in the last year go and get one! | It'll be included on your health insurance and the blood draw | will include things like if you have high cholesterol. | rmellow wrote: | In the US I presume? | | Canadians have a harder time... | | In Canada/Ontario, you have to convince your doctor to give | you a cholesterol test, e.g. family history. It won't be done | preventively [1]. | | Even if you manage to get tested, if you're under 40 the | doctor won't care and there will be no followup. | | [1] https://exechealth.ca/ontario-drops-annual-physicals/ | testesttest wrote: | A test in the US < $50 and is easy to schedule without | having a doctor involved at LabCore or similar. Is that an | option in CA? | Karawebnetwork wrote: | In Quebec at least, a doctor's prescription is required | for all blood tests even at private labs. | rmellow wrote: | There are private clinics one can become a member of, but | this is extremely uncommon and most people don't know | it's an option. | | Costs upwards of $3,000 annually. | daniel-cussen wrote: | Meh. Might be an American thing, if you watch TV or news | the images of persons will be constantly telling you to ask | your doctor about this, consult a medical professional | before this other activity they advertise, and oh you gotta | see a dentist every six months. Just demand creation, | better just to get a blood-pressure test when you do see a | doctor and a cholesterol test based on the result. | nradov wrote: | Annual checkups are not justified from an evidence-based | medicine perspective for most healthy adults. They don't | produce better outcomes. | | https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/is-the-annual-physical- | unne... | | Annual checkups aren't necessarily fully covered by health | insurance plans. However, other preventative care services | are. | | https://www.healthcare.gov/coverage/preventive-care- | benefits... | robbiep wrote: | There is no real medical need for an 'annual physical' it is | a creation of the American medical-industrial complex and | creates more problems than it solves. | | Having said that seeing a doctor occasionally for blood | pressure etc is useful, but the interval for someone young | and otherwise not experiencing any symptoms doesn't need to | be annually | mrmuagi wrote: | Isn't there catch-it-early type diseases? Like breast | cancer, testicular cancer, colon cancer, etc... that prove | this wrong? | | The funny thing is, the older you get, you are likely to | have some sort of symptom. Such is life. | | For blood pressure, I would expand and add general | bloodwork for health conscious individuals or people with a | family history for certain issues -- diabetes, liver, | androgen, heart health markers.. Here in Canada you just | need to mention you are interested for health reasons and a | doctor refers you -- not sure how costly it is in USA -- | but apparently private clinics are a choice to build custom | panels. | franga2000 wrote: | I've heard many experts talk about issues with "catching | disease early", one being that what doctors find might | have never developed far enough to cause harm and so the | treatment might actually be more harmful. | | I don't want to risk trying to explain it from memory | since I have zero medical knowledge, but there's a | YouTube video by "MedlifeCrisis" about this that also has | sources cited in the description. The title is something | like "the problem with screening". | throwaway4aday wrote: | > one being that what doctors find might have never | developed far enough to cause harm and so the treatment | might actually be more harmful. | | This is not a reason to not screen regularly. If treating | very early is the problem then you should still aim to | detect it early and then closely monitor it until you | have enough information to decide whether to act or not. | There are many people that will simply not go in for | testing until there is a major problem if you advise | against regular testing. A close family member of mine | just passed away recently because he didn't go in for | regular testing and they caught the cancer way too late. | robbiep wrote: | For 'catch it early' you are talking screening. That's | why there's cervical cancer screening (pap smear/the new | cytology test), mammograms, faecal occult blood tests, in | australia skin cancer screening, etc. | | And that's why people should have a regular doctor and | that's why as you get older you see your doctor more | frequently. But for young(ish) otherwise healthy people, | the whole concept of something ther occurs annually | doesnt make sense. | | In the other hand, since most screening and medical | engagement is with females, you are left with lots of men | who get into their 40s without ever having seen a doctor. | So - if thats you - go and see one, build a relationship, | and if everything is good ask when you need to come back | for prostate screening, FOBT, cholesterol or anything | else. All across the board is unnecessary. | | With regards to your last point, I'm all for devolving | autonomy and power to the patient, but frankly across the | board wide ranging blood testing (especially regularly) | just doesn't make sense for a significant percentage of | people, unless there is a high pre test probability or a | significant family history. All blood results are managed | at the 95% CI so if you go in and have 20+ blood tests | then more than likely at least one is going to be out of | order. All you need to do is visit the askdocs subreddit | to see the immense anxiety and flow down effects that has | on a population who have absolutely no way of | understanding a slightly out of bounds result. Those | private clinics trying to spin up and do 'wellness | checks' are frankly in my opinion, and until the evidence | proves otherwise, a parasite on the worried well | WheatM wrote: | pkaye wrote: | > There is no real medical need for an 'annual physical' it | is a creation of the American medical-industrial complex | and creates more problems than it solves. | | What problems does it create? Isn't preventive care a good | thing? Also Japan does annual physicals much more rigorous | that in the US. I wish what is done in the US was more | rigorous because it would have caught the autoimmune | disease that caused my kidney failure. Unfortunately by the | time there are visible symptoms, the damage cannot be | reversed. | retrac wrote: | Medicine can hurt as well as heal. A concrete example. | Many doctors will advise you not to get a full body MRI | scan. You can pretty easily buy such a service, and hire | some radiologists to pour over every cubic millimetre of | your body. But it's a really bad idea. | | Because they will almost certainly find something | ambiguous or troubling. And they're gonna biopsy. And | then, well, maybe that's ambiguous. Another biopsy. | You're terrified, the doctor's now worried about | something they would never have known about otherwise, | and maybe you have surgery to get it early. In the end | the complications of all that quite potentially add up to | a shorter life expectancy than simply not getting scanned | in the first place. On average. Though of course, if you | had a giant treatable tumour that shows up, well, you'd | want the scan. But most people don't have one, and all | those interventions can cause harm. | Footkerchief wrote: | The correct takeaway is to use information responsibly, | not to deny yourself information. | robbiep wrote: | I agree in principle, but health literacy is so | appallingly low - globally - that more often than not | people are not equipped to deal with this information. As | I said in an earlier post on this thread, look at the | askdocs subreddit. 90% of the posts there are worried | well asking for clarification of some unnecessary test | they went and specifically asked a doctor for, the result | of which they don't understand and which is causing a | cascade of health anxiety. | | If every person understood enough to realise how many | 'abnormalities' enough investigations would show up, and | how in 99% of people they mean absolutely nothing, then | it would be fine. But that's not our current situation. | And if you're one of those people who are capable of | parsing the dense health literature and understanding the | implications (or not) of 'normal abnormal' findings, then | go for it. But for the population as a whole? It's not | viable or helpful | colinmhayes wrote: | People are too dumb to do that, even if they're actively | trying to. | MPSimmons wrote: | There are a couple of orders of magnitude difference | between findings from a full-body MRI and a routine | labwork run. | robbiep wrote: | Preventative care is different from the concept of all | round comprehensive annual physical as it has been | propagated through the culture from the American | experience (I practice in Australia, so am talking from | what I see from time working there, and the trickle | through effect culturally of Australians thinking this is | something they 'have' to have). | | Preventative care consists of positive health messages | (smoking cessation, moderate alcohol consumption, healthy | diet, exercise), early identification of at risk | individuals through family history, obesity, and then | population wide cancer screening. Preventative care does | not mean take a dozen tubes of blood and a pot of urine | on every person every year. | | I'm really sorry to hear about your kidney failure | thaway2839 wrote: | Annual checkups are just that. 1) Body weight | measurements. 2) The doctor talking to you about whether | you have any medical or life concerns. 3) The doctor | sharing advice on diet improvements, smoking | improvements, exercise plans, including providing | resources for them. 4) Recommended screenings based on | age. 5) 1-2 vials of blood to get basic health | information such as glucose levels, vitamin levels, etc. | 6) Urine samples are only required if you're sexually | active with multiple partners to screen for STDs and is | completely optional. | | That's been my experience. Through the annual physical | I've been able to handle several minor issues, which have | materially improved my life, and identified a major | diagnosis that goes undiagnosed in the majority of people | throughout their lives, and leads to them living | significantly worse lives than they would have otherwise. | By identifying it early, I have a chance for a much | better lifestyle, and reducing the odds of an early death | greatly. | dang wrote: | Related: | | _US man who got first pig heart transplant dies after 2 months_ | - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30615375 - March 2022 (3 | comments) | | _Two weeks later David Bennett is alive, his pig's heart beating | soundly_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30080472 - Jan | 2022 (490 comments) | | _The doctor behind the first pig-to-human heart transplant_ - | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30044630 - Jan 2022 (3 | comments) | | _In a First, Man Receives a Heart from a Genetically Altered | Pig_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29900921 - Jan 2022 | (2 comments) | | _U.S. surgeons transplant pig heart into human patient_ - | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29882912 - Jan 2022 (701 | comments) | jjtheblunt wrote: | this is sad. | | it's kind of bizarre from a mile high view, but all so normal | too, that no one comments on the sacrifice of a pig, i found | myself observing. | danielovichdk wrote: | The pig i don't care about. But I would really really like to | know if David Bennett lived his life being healthy and fit. | [deleted] | faeyanpiraat wrote: | I would also be happy to go vegan, but I don't see a way to be | healthy that way, so.. | ben_w wrote: | If it's specifically pigs up for discussion, vegan and | vegetarian are the same, and vegetarian is easier -- I'm | vegetarian, and AFAIK there's no food made from pig's milk | (certainly nothing I've seen in the local supermarket). | | But as for healthy? That's the easy part, there are so many | healthy vegan options it's silly. Food cravings however, | that's hard (and also _why_ I'm only vegetarian, not vegan -- | I'm looking forward to improvements to vegan cheese[0] in | particular given everything else on sale around here now has | good enough non-dairy alternatives -- though the other part | is that I'm not hugely concerned about the ethics of free- | range no-kill eggs). | | [0] smoked tofu slices is good for sandwiches, but it doesn't | melt nicely on pasta | missedthecue wrote: | I think most take it as a given that human life > swine life | jll29 wrote: | May he rest in peace - he had some additional happy days from | what it looks like, and he helped science advance a bit, kudos to | him. | | What worried me was when I read he was "not eligible" to be a | recipient of a human heart; I hope this is not just because he | had a bad (or no) insurance. | thechao wrote: | He refused vaccination. Also, not the greatest human; but, he | served his time, so I don't think that had an impact. | conroydave wrote: | top comment currently references he was near multiple organ | failure prior to the transplant. | faeyanpiraat wrote: | Hopefully he had the opportunity to get out from the hospital | in the meantime. | Supermancho wrote: | He lasted 2 months. For reference, artificial hearts generally do | 130 days - (2018) | https://syncardia.com/patients/media/blog/2018/08/seven-thin... | with some notable outliers that live for years, and human to | human transplant is about 9 years. Usually it's some related | systemic problem that kills you under these conditions eg | consistent brain clotting causing stroke or organ failure due to | drug cocktails. | ryeights wrote: | Wow, that's not great. I take it these are meant to be used as | a stopgap before an actual transplant? | Stevvo wrote: | Yea; it's a stopgap solution. The pump is in a backpack so | it's not perfect for mobility. | hwillis wrote: | LVADs are implanted in your chest. Blood doesn't leave your | body, but do they have external batteries. You have a wire | coming out of your chest (or neck/head, sometimes) which is | a constant infection worry. AFAIK the only external pumps | are like, countertop kind of things. | | They're ideally a stopgap, but even still it's typically a | massive change in quality of life. The left ventricle is | what feeds your entire body blood; the right ventricle only | feeds the lungs. When the left ventricle fails, blood backs | up and starts overflowing into the lung space. It's | exceptionally unpleasant. The right ventricle is usually in | much better shape so an LVAD can be almost like having a | functioning transplant except for the risk of infection. | faeyanpiraat wrote: | Well, half of your hearth failing being "exceptionally | unpleasant" is not a surprise. | | Anyways, wouldn't it be feasible to use wireless power | transfer? | [deleted] | [deleted] | throwthere wrote: | Not always, some are"destination" therapy meaning no | transplant planned in the immediate future. | | https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/treatments/17192-left-. | .. | rootusrootus wrote: | That's an LVAD, though -- isn't that an entirely different | beast than an artificial heart, with a different use case? | throwthere wrote: | Artificial heart is kind of a non-specific term. It | covers anything from LVAD, LBAD and RVAD together, ECMO | or biventrivular vad. So depends on what you're | specifically referring to but lvad is the most common of | those. | rootusrootus wrote: | Fair enough. I'm in no way experienced in the medical | field. I would have told you I thought an artificial | heart was a complete heart replacement, just like a full | transplant but with a mechanical device instead. TIL. | hwillis wrote: | It's still typically a massive change in quality of life. | The left ventricle is what feeds your entire body blood; | the right ventricle only feeds the lungs. When the left | ventricle fails, blood backs up and starts overflowing | into the lung space in addition to the rest of your body | slowly suffocating. It's exceptionally unpleasant. | | The right ventricle is usually in much better shape so an | LVAD can be almost like having a functioning transplant, | except that there's a big wire going out of your | chest/neck (which is a constant infection risk and can't | really get wet) and you're now battery-powered. | | Any kind of heart transplant comes with huge problems, | even besides the immunosupressants etc. The nerves don't | reconnect, so the heart doesn't respond to commands to | speed up. It makes any kind of exertion difficult and | unpleasant. Diet is critical, clots are a constant fear, | etc. By the time you get a transplant you've usually | spent a while with insufficient bloodflow, and your | organs have been slowly dying. | | It's nothing short of incredible that people can get 20+ | years out of transplants. The deck is stacked against us | _hard_. | sagarun wrote: | LVAD goes for 5 years | sebazzz wrote: | > He had already been bedridden for six weeks leading up to the | surgery, attached to a machine which was keeping him alive. | | Slightly less. | momenti wrote: | Heart transplant recipients survive 15 years on average: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heart_transplantation | msrenee wrote: | The Wikipedia page cites a documentary as the source, which | may be correct, but doesn't seem like an appropriate source. | Here's a paper that I skimmed the abstract of claiming ~9 | years: | | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15280687/ | MPSimmons wrote: | I don't know what the documentary source is, but this paper | is from 2004, and it's likely that procedures have improved | reliability since then. | maewsa wrote: | Documentary cited is from 2007 so that's a marked | improvement for 2-3 years... | | I'd personally lean towards trusting published medical | journal. | sobren wrote: | sonicggg wrote: | To be honest, not sure why we spend so much resources on | heart transplants. For the most part, the underlying | condition that wrecked your old heart is probably still | there. We should be putting more resources into preventative | medicine. | dekhn wrote: | Artificial hearts are artificial hearts- mechanical plumbing. | This is far more akin to human heart transplantation (which is | a mature operation that has excellent outcomes). | willis936 wrote: | https://apnews.com/article/pig-heart-transplant-patient-dies... | | >Bennett's doctors said he had heart failure and an irregular | heartbeat, plus a history of not complying with medical | instructions. | | >Patients may see Bennett's death as suggesting a short life- | expectancy from xenotransplantation, but the experience of one | desperately ill person cannot predict how well this procedure | ultimately will work, said ethics expert Karen Maschke of The | Hastings Center. That will require careful studies of multiple | patients with similar medical histories. | [deleted] | martini333 wrote: | Sure. Everybody dies. He also lived way longer than expected with | the big heart. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-03-09 23:00 UTC)