LOUISVILLE, Kentucky (Reuters) – The first recipient of a totally implantable replacement heart has experienced a major setback more than 3 months after his surgery, his doctors said on Tuesday.
Dr. Laman Gray, who implanted the AbioCor mechanical heart in 59-year-old Robert Tools on July 2, said the setback "began with the onset of weakness in the right side of his body."
Jewish Hospital in Kentucky, where two of the groundbreaking surgeries have been performed, said it would not release further information about Tools' condition until a news conference set for Wednesday at 2 pm EST.
Tools, a diabetic who was near death from heart failure before the surgery, had been reported doing extremely well as recently as a week ago, and had been eating solid food and taking walks.
When doctors first implanted the mechanical heart in Tools' chest, they had said they hoped to double his expected life span, which had been no more than 30 days when he arrived. But surgeons later revised that view, and grew optimistic that Tools might live a relatively normal life with his mechanical heart.
The AbioCor heart, manufactured by Danvers, Massachusetts-based Abiomed Inc., had so far performed flawlessly and avoided the previous blood clots and threat of infection posed by previous mechanical hearts.
A second patient who received a mechanical heart at Jewish Hospital in mid-September, 70-year-old Tom Christerson, had been faring less well, but his heart had continued to work flawlessly, according to surgeons Gray and Rob Dowling.
Three more patients at other US hospitals have also undergone the experimental surgery, which was approved only for patients who are too sick to receive a normal heart for transplant.
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