Word: hearted
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...cold light of these figures, many questions arise. Were heart transplants begun prematurely? Have there been too many? Or too few? Did the mere existence of the procedure arouse false hope in patients for whom no donor heart could be found? Is it better to die after long hospitalization and distressing drug treatment, with a transplanted heart, than to die a little earlier with one's natural, inborn heart? What hope does the immediate future offer for longer and healthier survival...
...Brigade. On the general answers to most of these questions, the heart surgeons are agreed, though they differ on details. No, say the surgeons emphatically, the beginning of transplants was not premature. The surgical technique had been worked out years earlier, in animals, by Stanford University's Dr. Norman E. Shumway Jr., with Dr. Richard R. Lower, who is now at the Medical College of Virginia. Both Shumway and Brooklyn's Dr. Adrian Kantrowitz had their scalpels poised when South Africa...
Later, complains Cardiologist Irvine H. Page, a past president of the American Heart Association, the "circus trappings and glitter" surrounding the transplants set off a rush among surgeons to join "the me-too brigade." Many surgeons concede that by no means were all of the 36 medical centers in 16 countries that have tried transplants well-enough staffed or equipped to do so. Yet despite all the failures, Houston's Dr. Denton A. Cooley, who has transplanted more hearts than any other man, defends the operations. He points to what happened after early, unsuccessful attempts at heart-valve surgery...
...Today heart-valve surgery is common, and is successful for nearly 90% of patients. Transplant of the heart may never approach that record, but Dr. Cooley is "glad that heart transplantation has not been abandoned...
Ultimately, heart transplants may become unnecessary. By the time the immunologists have learned to induce tissue tolerance, an artificial heart should be perfected. To his pleased surprise, says DeBakey, the excitement over transplants has not hindered but has stimulated interest in efforts by his and other laboratories to produce an artificial heart. It will, he predicts, come in stages. First, a cumbersome external device that will keep the patient bedfast. Second, a portable but still external model. Eventually, he hopes for an implantable device with an internal power supply that will enable the patient to resume normal activities. Even then...