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A Good Artificial Heart?; More medical news.
Topic Started: Jan 13 2008, 07:58 AM (169 Views)
George K
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Finally
Some of the problems with artificial hearts include the need to put the patient on blood thinners, power/battery issues and trauma caused to the blood cells by being pumped by a, well, a pump.

New research may solve these issues by taking cadaver hearts, getting rid of the cellular structure, keeping the "skeleton" and repopulating with new cells.

Bio-artificial heart.

Doctors have stripped down and refurbished a dead heart so that it can beat again, an unprecedented feat that could signal the beginning of the end of organ shortages.

The revolutionary research could overcome the shortage of replacement hearts and other organs, and do away with the need for antirejection drugs, according to an American team.

The world's first beating, retooled "bioartificial heart" is described today in the journal Nature Medicine by University of Minnesota researchers in research that could pave the way to a new treatment for the 22 million people worldwide who live with heart failure.

The team took a whole heart and removed cells from it. Then, with the resulting architecture, chambers, valves and the blood vessel structure intact, repopulated the structure with new cells.

"We just took nature's own building blocks to build a new organ," says Dr Harald Ott, a co-investigator who now works at Massachusetts General Hospital. "When we saw the first contractions we were speechless."

The work has huge implications: "The idea would be to develop transplantable blood vessels or whole organs that are made from your own cells," said Prof Doris Taylor, director of the Centre for Cardiovascular Repair, Minnesota, principal investigator.

The method could be used to grow liver, kidney, lung and pancreas, indeed virtually any organ with a blood supply.

She tells The Daily Telegraph that although "years away" from using the method in hospitals, she is ready to grow a human heart, though costs make it prohibitive at present.

"We could begin with human cells and pig or human scaffold now but creating the larger bioreactors (the vessels in which the organs are grown) and generating the reagents and growing enough cells would cost tens of thousands of dollars for each heart at this point.

"That is just too expensive to answer basic questions. We of course want to move in that direction, but funding is limited. As we can we will go forward - perhaps one heart at a time. "

In general, the supply of donor organs is limited and once a heart is transplanted, individuals face life-long immunosuppression, where drugs are used to prevent rejection, often trading heart failure for high blood pressure, diabetes, and kidney failure over the long term..

Because a new heart created by decellularization could be filled with the recipient's own stem cells the researchers believe it's much less likely to be rejected by the body.

And once placed in the recipient, in theory the heart would be nourished, regulated, and regenerated similar to the heart that it replaced.

"We used immature heart cells in this version, as a proof of concept. We pretty much figured heart cells in a heart matrix had to work," Prof Taylor says. "Going forward, our goal is to use a patient's stem cells to build a new heart."

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Frank_W
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Man... Brilliant!! What incredible times we live in!
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George K
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The logistics of such a transplant would be formidable.

First, you have to get a heart. It probably doesn't matter what the health of the organ is. You're going to kill it anyway, keeping only the skeleton.

Then, you have to get stem cells from the recipient to repopulate the heart. How long will that take? And, while that's happening, how do you nourish the organ? Where do you keep it, in a lab? What happens to the potential recipient while the organ is growing? If he dies before the transplant, too bad?

With these things, timing is important, with heart transplants being pretty urgent things. If it takes months, or even weeks, to grow a new heart, it may be too late.

There are artificial devices that can sustain life for a while (the old mechanical hearts), but you're talking about another operation with all of its risks to perform the implant.

Still, encouraging as hell.
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- Mik, 6/14/08


Nothing is as effective as homeopathy.

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Mikhailoh
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Some of us will not be able to benefit from these therapies, but our children certainly will. Incredible.
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dolmansaxlil
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George - I wonder if hearts were easier to get for transplant, if doctors would recommend it earlier than they do now, therefore giving them more time before it's a "we need to do a transplant NOW" scenario? I obviously don't know the specifics of when a transplant is indicated over other treatment, but I would imagine many of them would be a last resort treatment for chronic conditions. Maybe if this procedure means that shortages of hearts needed for transplant aren't as common, they're recommend the transplant earlier for patients who would be possibilities for this procedure, since they know they aren't taking a heart away from someone who has no other option?
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George K
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Quote:
 
The method could be used to grow liver, kidney, lung and pancreas, indeed virtually any organ with a blood supply.


Here's the really exciting part. These organs, though necessary for life, are not as critical as the heart (except for the liver). Theoretically one could sustain a patient on dialysis, with intravenous alimentation (for the pancreas), on a ventilator for a long time.
A guide to GKSR: Click

"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... "
- Mik, 6/14/08


Nothing is as effective as homeopathy.

I'd rather listen to an hour of Abba than an hour of The Beatles.
- Klaus, 4/29/18
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George K
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dolmansaxlil
Jan 13 2008, 10:09 AM
George - I wonder if hearts were easier to get for transplant, if doctors would recommend it earlier than they do now, therefore giving them more time before it's a "we need to do a transplant NOW" scenario?

I think part of the urgency of heart transplantation is not only the seriousness of the patient's condition, but also the luck of having a compatible organ become available. So, if Uncle Ed is on the list for a transplant, but getting along, and an organ comes up that's a match, he goes to the top of the list, even if someone sicker needs a heart more desperately.

Heart transplants are done when other therapies have failed. They are usually not done for coronary artery disease, but for conditions in which the muscle has been damaged so that it can't sustain life. These conditions include various cardiomyopathies (caused by drugs (alcohol), viruses, etc), valvular abnormalities that have overworked the muscle, as well as coronary artery disease that has killed off so much myocrardium (hear muscle) that it's not working well.
A guide to GKSR: Click

"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... "
- Mik, 6/14/08


Nothing is as effective as homeopathy.

I'd rather listen to an hour of Abba than an hour of The Beatles.
- Klaus, 4/29/18
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Frank_W
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Resident Misanthrope
I have a friend who's only 36, and already has a pace maker, effectively ending her recreational diving activities due to pressures at depth. If she could have had this done, she'd be back in the water with no limitations. And Mik has it right: We may not be able to benefit, but our children and grandchildren will. I suppose the next step will be to see if cellular growth can be accelerated?
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katie
Fulla-Carp
Amazing.
I want to read more.
I want to know how long this takes.
Being a patient on a ventilator, waiting for that transplant is very stressful. It may not happen. So many issues, physical, emotional. Difficult times for patients, families, staff. So many die waiting as it is.

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Axtremus
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Impressive progress! :thumb:
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Moonbat
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Quote:
 

I suppose the next step will be to see if cellular growth can be accelerated?


Unlikely.

Amazing research though.
Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem
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