Word: aorta
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Near the arch of the aorta (see diagram) he inserted a plastic catheter tube, which was connected to a heart-lung machine. Another catheter, similarly connected, went into the right auricle. At this point, the whole body was perfused with oxygenated blood. The surgeons then clamped the aorta beyond the catheter and clamped the pulmonary artery and venae cavae, thus isolating the heart from the rest of the body, which thereafter received no circulation...
...painstaking sequence, Dr. Barnard stitched the donor heart in place. First the left-auricle, then the right. He joined the stub of Denise's aorta to Washkansky's, her pulmonary artery to his. Finally, the veins. Assistant surgeons removed the catheters from the implant as Barnard worked...
...begun cooling the recipient baby in a water bath to 59 °F. After 40 minutes, they were ready to cut. One group excised the dead baby's heart while another excised the recipient's. In a mere 30 minutes Dr. Kantrowitz was able to join the aorta, the great veins and pulmonary arteries. From skin to skin, the operation took 2¼ hours...
Pumping on Signal. Surgeons injected a local anesthetic into the patient's thigh and cut into the femoral artery. They then threaded a flexible plastic tube up the artery and the aorta until a deflated balloon at its end was about level with the heart (see diagram). The outside end of the tube led to an electrically operated pump filled with nonflammable, nonexplosive helium. The patient was connected to an electrocardiograph, whose signals could control the pump...
With the balloon in place, the ECG signals were fed into a relay to regulate the pump's timing. When the patient's left ventricle contracted naturally, it sent a modest amount of blood into the aorta, but under insufficient pressure. A fraction of a second later, when her aortic valve had closed, the ECG signal made the pump fill the balloon with helium. This forced the blood in the aorta not only up and down, but also back to the roots of the coronary arteries, thus increasing the oxygen supply to the heart muscle. Meanwhile the ventricle...