France's Carmat implants its first artificial heart in human

Post by ye » Sat, Dec 21, 2013, 5:35 PM UTC

saalweachter wrote: post #8

elwell wrote: post #2

> first implant of an artificial heart that can beat for up to five years One: I don't think this is the first. Two: the artificial hearts I've heard of don't actually beat ; it's more of a constant flow.

Reading their website ( http://www.carmatsa.com/index.php?option=com_flexicontent&vi... ), as near as I can tell, they're basically claiming to be "closest yet" to a real heart, including "auto-regulation", which I think means they're saying it can beat faster or slower as you need more or less bloodflow. The scariest thing is that they also boast a significant increase in battery life ... to 12 hours. Jesus, I get a…

Post by msthomaa » Sat, Dec 21, 2013, 5:58 PM UTC

ryanSrich wrote: post #6

carbocation wrote: post #3

Perhaps this title was initially Reuters' error? Their current headline reads, " France's Carmat implants its first artificial heart in human ". This sounds like a big first step for this company, though as other commenters have noted, this is certainly not the first artificial heart implanted in a human. Certainly, if there were a viable long-term replacement that didn't require people to become brain dead so that o…

I suggest checking out the short video "Flatline" on Vimeo. I can't link to it from my phone but it's worth a watch.

Post by ye » Sat, Dec 21, 2013, 7:50 PM UTC

Stratego wrote: post #12

ye wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shows how amazing evolution is at "designing" complex efficient systems. Our hearts beat for 70-100+ years without a charge.

Don't know about you, but my heart needs a charge every six hours and it goes in hibernation mode every 12 hours. Can I upgrade to yours? :-)

Post by tehf0x » Sat, Dec 21, 2013, 8:00 PM UTC

ye wrote: post #11

saalweachter wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading their website ( http://www.carmatsa.com/index.php?option=com_flexicontent&vi... ), as near as I can tell, they're basically claiming to be "closest yet" to a real heart, including "auto-regulation", which I think means they're saying it can beat faster or slower as you need more or less bloodflow. The scariest thing is that they also boast a significant increase in battery life ... to 12 hours. Jesus, I get a…

Shows how amazing evolution is at "designing" complex efficient systems. Our hearts beat for 70-100+ years without a charge.

Post by EliRivers » Sat, Dec 21, 2013, 8:21 PM UTC

fjcornell wrote: post #16

ye wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shows how amazing evolution is at "designing" complex efficient systems. Our hearts beat for 70-100+ years without a charge.

Pretty amazing that it was a result of a lucky mutation. I wonder what happened to the millions (billions?) of organisms that couldn't maintain a steady heartbeat?