Word: kasperak
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Dates: during 1968-1968
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...case of Mike Kasperak differed from that of other transplant patients in the underlying cause of his heart disease. Kasperak, 54, was stricken with a severe viral inflammation of the heart (viral myocarditis) ten years ago. Recently the inflammation had not been active, but the heart had become enlarged, more scarred and fibrous. Kasperak (pronounced Ka-spair-ak) quit his job as a Cleveland steelworker and retired to East Palo Alto, Calif. After a November episode of heart failure, he was admitted to Stanford Medical Center on Jan. 5, in desperate plight. When Kasperak asked his wife, Feme, what...
Distributor Cap. When Mrs. White died, a team headed by Dr. William Angell removed her heart. Dr. Shumway did not have it perfused with blood, as had been done in South Africa, while Kasperak was prepared for the implant. He simply had it kept in a cold saline solution, at about 50°F. Kasperak, on a heart-lung machine, was cooled hardly at all. Applying experience gained from years of experimental surgery on animals, Dr. Shumway left in place two quadrantal areas of Kasperak's heart, with venae cavae and pulmonary veins attached-analogous to the distributor...
There were many complications. Kasperak had worked in a fume-filled steel mill, had been a heavy smoker and, as a result, his lungs were leathery. They could not exchange enough oxygen to keep him going. So an incision was made in his throat and a tube inserted to supply oxygen more efficiently and to remove mucus. Kasperak's big chest was rigid; other organs showed little tendency to close in around the small heart, and the cavity filled with fluid. His liver and kidneys had been damaged by a shortage of oxygenated blood...
Scarcely more than a day after the transplant, Kasperak began to bleed into his gastrointestinal tract. Evidently the clotting mechanism in his blood had been knocked out by the failure of his liver to produce the necessary enzymes. His platelets (tiny disklike elements in the blood, which are important in clotting) plummeted from a normal count of 250,000 per cu. mm. to 4,000. This required heroic measures. Kasperak had to have blood transfusions, and to remove metabolic wastes from his body the surgeons punched another hole in him-through the abdominal wall, for peritoneal dialysis. This...