Man with Artificial Heart

Charles Okeke, 43-year-old man Phoenix, Arizona, United States, had never expected would be a person whose surname is 'man with an artificial heart'.

Already assumed the title two years later, he got after his body rejected the transplanted heart of existence to him, since he was 30 years old.

Okeke since that's life depends on machines weighing 181 kg. For about two years, he must live in the Mayo Clinic Hospital, Phoenix, because it must always be close to the engine size of a washing machine, which serves the blood supply to the entire body.

Fortunately, medical device company SynCardia successfully created the world's smallest artificial heart, Total Artificial Heart.

U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently approved the use of this tool, and Okeke be the first to use a portable device weighing approximately 6 kg of it.

The size of this artificial heart could be much smaller than previous devices because it uses sensors are also shrinking.

"Sensors are used to the size of a large soup can now only one quarter. This allows us to reduce the size of the console," said Steven Langford of SynCardia.

Portable artificial heart SynCardia was sold for U.S. $ 125,000 with maintenance fees of U.S. $ 18,000 per year.

Powered by a battery, and equipped with four valves, this tool replaces the role of the ventricles of the heart to pump blood to other organs like liver, or kidneys.


Thanks to the total artificial heart, Okeke could now leave the hospital and back home he had left for two years. He can move more freely, because the heart has homemade tenteng he could go anywhere in your bag back packnya.

"Now I was a happy man, as you see today," said Okeke. "Now I can sleep in my own bed after two years in a hospital bed."

Okeke still need to train hard to maintain her fitness, while still waiting for a heart from a donor, to be transplanted back into the body.

But, as long as he has not found the right heart, the doctors allow it to use a portable artificial heart is, until the time is not unlimited.