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CNN Live At Daybreak

Self-Contained Artificial Heart Up and Running

Aired July 04, 2001 - 07:05   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: We move onto a first taking place in Louisville, Kentucky: For the first time doctors have placed an artificial heart in the chest of a patient, a heart that operates completely on its own.

CNN medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen is on the scene with more.

Good morning, Elizabeth. What are you expecting for today's news conference?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Carol, what we're hoping to hear is some more details about this patient, the man or the woman, who on Monday in a seven-hour surgery received this almost completely internal and completely portable artificial heart.

They really haven't told us much so far except that he or she is resting comfortably. The one thing, also, that we do know is that this person had a month or less to live. That's how bad this person's heart is. And we also know that the doctors who put the heart in are only hoping for an extra month of life.

So, in other words, they think that this person will live another two months, at the most, on this heart. This person was in a horrible situation, obviously. And the heart was really this person's last chance.

LIN: Elizabeth, his last chance -- his or her last chance -- then why are they trying this? Is this really an experiment? Or did they think that something is going to happen in the next couple of months that might save this person's life?

COHEN: You know, we don't really know that. And that's the big question for the press conference today. To me, it sounds really mostly experimental. I mean, here's a person who, again, has a month or less to live. And they're very open. They say: We think we're only giving this person another month on top of that month that they have left to live.

They've also said that this person is not a candidate for a human heart transplant. So, really, this person has put him or herself up for medical science. It's not really therapeutic, from what we know so far.

LIN: How is this artificial heart different than the previous artificial hearts?

COHEN: It's really completely different from the Jarvik hearts that were put into patients in the 1980s. Those patients -- for example, William Schroeder and Barney Clark -- they were tethered to a machine the size of a dishwasher. So you can imagine, they couldn't go very far. This heart is completely implanted and portable.

We can take a look at it. Inside this person's torso is the artificial heart and internal battery. And then at the bottom of the pictures that I hope we're seeing, you can also see a device that regulates the beat. It is computer chips that tell it how fast or how slow to pump. And then, externally, the person also wears a portable battery pack that powers the internal battery. And that's portable. The person could theoretically walk around with it. So it's very different from the old heart.

LIN: All right, thank you very much, Elizabeth Cohen, standing by in Louisville, Kentucky.

And, hopefully, we'll find out a little bit more about this patient today -- who it is.

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