The “HeartMate II” artificial heart manufactured by Thoratec Corp.
Two months after Veerakit Nawasinpongsuk woke up from surgery with a mechanical heart in his chest, the 56-year-old is feeling pretty good. He just has to keep recharging his heart.
Yesterday the Siriraj Medical Science Faculty of Mahidol University declared the operation the first such successful procedure in Thailand.
After a decade of heart problems, Veerakit, 56, needed a new heart but his medical condition precluded transplanting a donor heart.
On Dec. 19, Dr. Prinya Sakiyalak installed a Heartmate II device into Veerakit’s chest, just below his original heart. The Heartmate II has an expected shelf-life of 10 years and can run off a full charge for eight to 10 hours.
He was discharged from the hospital earlier this month and is doing well. More than 10,000 people around the world have received aritificial hearts, but the biggest barrier is price. The overall cost of such a procedure is about THB18 million, Thai PBS reported.
Like the warning says, please read the instruction manual before you try to use one of these things:
