LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) - Doctors at a Louisville hospital have implanted a self-contained artificial heart in a critically ill patient, the eighth such surgery in the United States but the first since April.
Only one of the previous patients - Tom Christerson of Central City, Ky., who received his heart in September 2001 in Louisville - is still alive.
The latest surgery took place last Tuesday, Jewish Hospital said in a statement Wednesday. The hospital said it would not release the patient's name or other details at the request of the family.
Robert Tools of Franklin, Ky., was the first to receive the self-contained heart, a softball-sized pump made of plastic and titanium and powered by batteries. It has no wires or tubes sticking through the skin, a technological leap from earlier mechanical hearts that were attached by wires and tubes to machinery outside the body.
Tools received the heart July 2, 2001, and lived five months.
