A fifteen-year-old Italian boy became the first child to receive a permanent artificial heart on Thursday.
The unnamed boy has Duchenne Syndrome, a serious progressive illness which causes severe muscular degeneration and, eventually, death. He was too ill for a heart transplant and had only days to live when pediatric cardiac surgeon Dr Antonio Amodeo, of Rome’s Bambino Gesù Children’s Hospital, decided to carry out the ten-hour operation.
Usually artificial hearts are fitted in patients who are awaiting transplant but in this case the device will be permanent. It functions as an electronically activated hydraulic pump placed inside the thorax and is connected to a plug behind the patient’s left ear. This, in turn, is connected to a battery on a belt which the patient wears and the battery is recharged overnight, just like that of a mobile phone.
The young patient will be in intensive care for another two weeks but is said to be doing well. The artificial heart may give him another 20 to 25 years of life and will improve his quality of life.
