Word: aortic
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Muscular and robust as it is, the heart is less tolerant of foreign materials. Washington Surgeon Charles Hufnagel overcame this intolerance in 1952, when he implanted the first artificial aortic valves, made of a Plexiglas ball in a Plexiglas sleeve. The ball has since been replaced by Silastic...
...must bob up and down 40 million times a year without sticking, and Dow Coming's Chemist Silas A. Braley says confidently: "The Silastic ball cannot stick." The University of Oregon's Dr. Albert Starr has installed 18 such valves in six patients -three apiece, replacing the aortic, mitral and tricuspid valves...
...Wisconsin have developed butterfly valves of Teflon that come closer to the original in design. The demands on the plastic in such valves are tremendous: the leaflets must bend back and forth 40 million times a year. But so far, 39 patients have had them installed as replacements for aortic or mitral valves, and they are still working after as long as 20 months...
...some mitral and aortic valves are so badly damaged and distorted that they are beyond repair. If he could take a piece of metal out of the heart, Harken wondered, why couldn't he put one in? Then he could replace an irreparable valve. When heart-lung machines were perfected, the way was opened for valve replacement. By now. Dr. Harken has implanted 47 heart valve replacements and many hundreds of similar heart valve operations have been done across the U.S. Human Substitute. Aside from Dr. Harken's work, most of the pioneering in heart surgery has been...
...bare finger against the whirring drill. It stopped without drawing blood or even causing pain. But shoved against bone or tissue that has been hardened by chalky deposits, the drill will cut with ease. One Pittsburgh surgeon has already used it to sculpture the delicate leaflets of an aortic valve (adjoining the heart) after they had been deformed by calcification. Because its lightness and small size permit pinpoint accuracy in bone sawing, the Hall drill is being recommended for other delicate procedures, such as work on the small bones of the hand and those deep inside...