Only about 15 operations of the type that saved Brian Pedigo have been performed in history.
with what Baptist Memorial Hospital doctors call a"total artificial heart" — battery-charged electromechanical devices that will keep the 41-year-old man's blood pumping until a heart transplant can be arranged.
Fortunately, the artificial heart — essentially, a pair of pumps that replace the removed ventricles of the heart — has given Pedigo a new lease on life, literally. "This is the most complex, the rarest and the highest-risk operation a heart patient can go through," he said. Pedigo had been receiving treatment in Corinth, Mississippi, before doctors there sent him to Vanderbilt University Medical Center. From there, he came to Memphis, where his failing health called for extreme measures.
The devices are regarded by doctors as"a bridge to transplantation," meaning that it is supposed to be replaced by a donor heart, eventually. To this end, Pedigo also received a type of breast implant, to fill the hollow left behind by the removed heart and act as a"spacer," to keep the chest ready for a future heart transplant.
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