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Ed Yeates reporting For the first time in Utah, surgeons have implanted a tiny artificial heart pump, into a mother from Oklahoma. The landmark surgery in Salt Lake City, is only the second, so far, in the United States.
45-year-old Cynthia Hill, a mother of four, is now only the second patient in the country to get this very small experimental assist pump to take over the burden of her own failing heart.
James Long, M.D. LDS Hospital Artificial Heart Project: "The opportunity to be able to put this in patient as small as our patient was - 110 pounds - is really revolutionary."
Up until now, people awaiting transplants were kept alive with a very large LVAD pump which needs a lot of room to fit inside the body. But the Heartmate II is only about the size of a D cell battery. But that's not the only difference."
It's less invasive and runs silent with little or no vibration...it's also the right size for a smaller adult, or for children.
Unlike the big LVAD which pulsates to fill and empty chambers - the small Heartmake II is a continuous flow turbine.
James Long, M.D. LDS Hospital Artificial Heart Project: "There's a turbine impeller in the middle of the pump that pushes the blood through and delivers it out the other end."
We couldn't interview Cynthia Hill because she's still recovering in ICU. But her mother used words like wonderful - marvelous.
Ida Lewis Cynthia's Mother: "There are no words that you can explain this. It's just marvelous. I think this is the most wonderful thing that has ever happened."
Wonderful will mean even more for future patients when clinical trials begin on this Utah made pump.
It's single moving part is suspended not on bearings but magnetically - so there's no friction to wear things out.
Human clinical trials on Utah's magnetic pump, could begin a year from now.
