A Japanese woman has received a new lease of life after doctors in a Osaka hospital carried out what can be considered the world’s first successful double heart pump operation.
Unlike extracorporeal ones, the operation involved pumps being embedded inside the body to increase blood flow and are said to be less likely to cause complications involving brain blood circulation or infection.
The embedded pumps also improve the ease of patients’ movement because they just need to carry a small battery with them instead of being attached to a large machine, Kyodo news agency reported.
“The patient’s heart is still not functioning but her condition has improved so she can lead her life without much trouble,” said Yoshiki Sawa, the patient’s surgeon at Osaka University Hospital.
“We hope to do a heart transplant soon.”
The patient, who is in her 30s and called just Kaori for the sake of confidentiality, had two kinds of pump devices measuring several centimetres implanted in both sides of her heart in January.
She was released from hospital on Tuesday.
At a press conference held the same day, she said: “I’m so glad to be out of hospital because at first I was told I would have to be hospitalised for at least three years.”
“I now want to play my role as the mother of my 10- and 8-year-old daughters,” she added.
In July 2009, Kaori was diagnosed with heart failure caused by severe heart muscle inflammation and was fitted with an artificial heart outside her body. She then had a stroke twice apparently because of the artificial heart.
About six months later, her condition worsened as she went into cardiac arrest again, after which she had the operation to implant the pumps.