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| Vol. 21, No. 10 |
| June 1, 1999 |
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Heart Pump Shows Promise as Bridge to Recovery by KRISTINA VAN ARSDEL< Texas Medical Center News Michelle Lambert, 32, thought she had a bad case of the flu. Her husband took her to a Houston-area emergency room with symptoms of fatigue, loss of appetite and shortness of breath. From there, she was transported to St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital and at the Texas Heart Institute received a diagnosis much more serious than she expected.
Lambert was suffering from idiopathic heart failure, a condition in which the heart muscle stops working properly. The term "idiopathic" means the condition has no known cause. According to Dr. O.H. Frazier, co-director of the Texas Heart Institute's Cullen Cardiovascular Research Laboratory and director of Surgical Research, idiopathic heart failure strikes approximately 10,000 young adults each year and is usually fatal. If the condition is mild, medication can be used as treatment. In more severe cases, doctors must look to other means. Ten years ago, a heart transplant may have been an option for Lambert. Today, with a shortage of donor hearts available, doctors had to find another alternative. According to statistics from the Texas Heart Institute, approximately 50,000 people could benefit from a heart transplant each year in the United States and only about 2,000 donor hearts are available.
The alternative was the implantation of an external cardiac assist pump, manufactured by Thoratec Laboratories, Inc. In Lambert's case, the device acted as a bridge to recovery - taking over the work of the left ventricle to give the heart an opportunity to rest and heal itself. The pump works like this: blood flows into the pump located outside the body. The pump fills with blood and then pumps the blood back to the aorta, relieving the left ventricle of its squeezing function. This particular pump is advantageous, says Dr. Frazier, because it can be used on small patients. After 46 days on the pump, doctors determined Lambert's heart had healed to the point that the pump could be removed and no heart transplant would be needed. Dr. Frazier says that improved pump technology and an understanding that the heart muscle can recover are the driving factors for the use of pumps as bridges to recovery. According to Dr. Frazier, as research continues in this area, the next frontier is addressing the question, "When do you take the pump out?" "I feel great other than some soreness," says Lambert, who is expected to go home soon. "There is nothing that we know now that makes us think she will not lead a normal life," says Dr. Frazier. Latosha Egan, 18, also a patient at the Texas Heart Institute at St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital, is hoping for the same outcome. She has been on her pump for five months. Doctors say she has an enlarged heart but it is hoped that she will also have the pump removed and not require transplant.
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