Artificial heart research at the Cleveland Clinic |
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In 1962-1964, I worked at the Cleveland Clinic in the Department of Artificial Organs, and it included the artificial kidney, heart, heart lung machine and more. The Dept. head was Dr. Willem Kolff, from Holland. He had single handedly invented and developed the artificial kidney. My job, as technician, was primarily in electronics and secondarily as a surgical assistant in heart replacement. We tried many types of mechanical devices to pump blood, but the most successful was the Akutsu sack type pump. It was invented by Dr. (Ted) Tetsuzo Akutsu in our lab in 1961.
The "heart" shown above, is really only one of 4 chambers of the heart. It is the left ventricle. The connections to the natural body are on the left side. The lower one is the pulmonary vein and the upper is for the aorta. The hose connection on the aorta is for monitoring the pumping blood pressure. The blood pressure waveform does not resemble the typical aortic wave because here it is measured in the ventricle, not on the other side of the valve. The ventricle is powered by air pressure from an external source and its connection is in the center of the photo. Surrounding that connection is a round ridge. This ridge is covering a coil of wire. Another coil of wire is on the other side of the ventricle. The coil of wire is part of the electrical measurement to instruct the computer to pump properly. Wires led out of the body to the equipment. They were always breaking at the heart due to the flexing. I replaced the coils with a radio transmitter. Problem solved, thanks to amateur radio. The "pump" is really two sacks, one inside of the other. Air is pumped in between the two and since the outer one can't expand much, the inner one collapses, forcing the blood out. A ball valve would be mounted in each of the two connections. The place where sutures tied the valve in place can be seen as ridges in the last 1/4" of the connection. The white spot in the center is a repair job made of RTV Silicone. The "heart" was made from Dacron fabric imbedded into Silicone by Dow Corning. During my time, we made them by hand. One of my jobs was making the woods metal molds upon which the Silicone fabric was laid. We replaced a natural heart in one, sometimes two, animals per week. This heart was used in 1963 to replace the heart in a dog. The dog survived only about 24 hours. Dogs were unsuitable and abandoned as test subjects. We used calves for a better survival time. Recently a national advertising campaign by Pfizer for the drug Lipitor shows Dr. Jarvik as the inventor of the artificial heart. The ad implies that Dr. Jarvik is the sole inventor of the concept. It is not true at all. He would have to stand in a long line for that one. Dr. Kolff was the first to implant a complete artificial heart in an animal. Many other laboratories were working on a variety of blood pumping devices. When Dr. Kolff retired, the lab was taken over by Dr. Jarvik. He carried on with the research and it progressed. He developed a mass production method of making the hearts. He also got the government approval for testing in humans. That was long after my tenure at the Cleveland Clinic. Pfizer has some wonderful products and they do not need to "cheapen" their image by making misleading claims. This was one of the most interesting jobs I have had. My boss, Dr. Kolff, was one of my best bosses. To get a chance to work with such great people, such as Dr. Akutsu, was beyond my greatest hopes. My interest in medicine never left and later I became an EMT in Fort Bidwell,
Ca. my country place from 75-93. |
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This page was last edited:
10/22/2006 - copyright
Duane Ausherman |
