Word: hufnagel
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Leaky valves, particularly the aortic. At Georgetown University Hospital, Surgeon Charles Anthony Hufnagel has developed an ingenious solution: into the aortic channel he introduces an additional valve made of plastic, with a floating ball which stops the backflow when the heart relaxes. (Such valves used to tick like a clock inside the patient, are now silent because the ball is covered with silicone rubber.) The gadget does not prevent all backflow but stops enough to keep most patients' hearts from being overloaded...
Another coronary operation, as practiced by Washington's Hufnagel, involves cutting and tying off both mammary arteries-the chest wall can get along without their blood supply-and thus shunt their contents over into the coronaries. Hufnagel hit on this theory by chance when, during different cardiac operations, mammary arteries were cut accidentally, and patients made better recoveries. Hufnagel has been doing this type of operation for years, is still patiently compiling data on his patients' progress before making claims of its effectiveness. Virtually the same operation, though done in execution of a different theory, attracted wide...
...family history of cancer of any kind, don't smoke, but if you have no family history of cancer, you can probably inhale smoke with less risk." ¶Grafts of arteries from calves and pigs have been successful in four human patients, Washington's Dr. Charles A. Hufnagel told the American College of Surgeons. The grafts "took" long enough for the patients' own arteries to grow and fill...
Like a Watch. Dr. Hufnagel and his colleagues did not intend to publish the story of the operation until they had done it four or five times. It leaked out, anyway. They still cannot tell whether the plastic valve can be used in other types of heart disease. All they will say now is that they expect it to be a big help in many cases of damage to the aorta caused by rheumatic fever. (The exceptions: the very young, the feeble and the aged.) There are thousands of such cases in the U.S. each year...
...only patient now wearing an artificial aortic valve ticks like a watch to the stethoscopic ear. Like nature's valve, the plastic job will work equally well in any position. "Patients will be able to stand on their heads, if they like," says Dr. Hufnagel...