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Mechanical heart recipient shows progress

HOUSTON, Sept. 28 (UPI) -- Doctors said Friday the world's third recipient of a self-contained artificial heart was doing better than expected and he might be up on his feet next week.

Dr. O.H. Frazier, the lead surgeon, said the patient now has normal blood flow because of the AbioCor artificial heart, which was implanted in a six-hour operation Wednesday at St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital. Before the surgery, the unidentified man had only one third of normal flow.

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Frazier and Dr. Reynolds Delgado, the patient's cardiologist, said they were encouraged by the man's progress and he would probably be taken off his respirator Friday. They said the mechanical heart was the patient's only chance of continuing his life.

"He knew he was dying and there really was no other hope," Delgado told a news conference.

Before the surgery, the patient was desperately ill, gasping for air and having trouble walking and thinking at times, the doctors said. There were also lung complications.

The AbioCor device, powered through the skin by an external battery pack, is constructed from plastic and titanium. It was manufactured by Abiomed, Inc., of Danvers, Mass.

Frazier helped develop the heart intended for patients with end-stage heart failure who have more than a 70 percent chance of dying within a month. The candidates are people who are not eligible for donor hearts and those who cannot be helped by other treatment.

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Frazier, who has performed more than 900 heart transplants, was pleased with the operation.

"It couldn't have gone more smoothly," he said.

Two other AbioCor devices were successfully implanted earlier this year.

Surgeons at the University of Louisville implanted the first AbioCor hearts on July 2 and Sept. at Jewish Hospital in Kentucky. The first patient, Bob Tools, is gaining weight and making trips outside the hospital. The second, Tom Christerson, is still in the early stages of recovery.

Initially, five patients are to receive the experimental heart and then the clinical trial will be expanded to 15 to 20 more before Food and Drug Administration approval is sought.

Only three other hospitals in the United States are approved for the experimental heart implant surgery. They are Brigham and Women's Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital, both in Boston, and the UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles.

Abiomed, the developer of the mechanical heart, requires a 30-day "quiet time" for the family after the surgery and the patient is not identified during that period.

Frazier is chief of cardiopulmonary transplantation at the Texas Heart Institute at the Houston hospital. Founded in 1962 by heart surgeon Dr. Denton Cooley, the institute was the site of the first successful heart transplant in the United States, the first implantation of a total artificial heart, and has pioneered the use of mechanical devices as bridges to transplant.

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