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| Vol. 24, No. 4 |
| March 1, 2002 |
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World’s Third AbioCor Artificial Heart Recipient Dies Physicians of the Texas Heart Institute and St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital announced Feb. 15 that 69-year-old Bobby Harrison, the world’s third recipient of an AbioCor Artificial Heart, died from complications lingering from a stroke he suffered Feb. 4. Harrison received the AbioCor device, developed by ABIOMED Inc., on Sept. 26 last year. As with all patients in the AbioCor clinical study, Harrison had less than a 70 percent chance of surviving 30 days before the implantation, and doctors had exhausted all clinical options. High pulmonary pressures were a primary factor in preventing him from being considered for a human heart transplant. "I wouldn’t be here today if it wasn’t for this heart and the doctors here. I had run out of chances. If anybody has the chance to get this heart, I have one thing to tell them – go for it," said Harrison in a statement in late January, and who celebrated his 69th birthday with family and friends in the hospital Jan. 9. "Mr. Harrison was a very brave man," said Dr. O.H. Frazier, chief of cardiopulmonary transplantation and director of surgical research at the Texas Heart Institute, and chief of transplant service at St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital. "My condolences go out to his family. I greatly admired his courage and the courage and devotion of his beloved wife, Doris. The burden of this trial is the necessity to implant this remarkable technology in patients with advanced illness. Complications in such a patient are frequently unavoidable, despite our best efforts. He undertook this not only for himself, but for so many others. Because of his willingness to be part of a new frontier of research, he provided us with new information that will potentially contribute to the saving of lives in the not-too-distant future." – Kathy Watson, Texas Heart Institute and Paul Harasim, St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital
©2006 Texas Medical Center E-Mail: tmcinfo@texmedctr.tmc.edu URL: http://www.tmc.edu/tmcnews/03_01_02/page_14.html |