Woman With Jarvik Heart Remains Stable

The first artificial heart implanted in a woman was functioning well Saturday, but the patient had to be hooked to a machine to aid her ailing kidneys, said doctors who expressed concern for her prospects.

Mary Lund, 40, of Kensington remained in critical but stable condition two days after a Minneapolis Heart Institute team at Abbott-Northwestern Hospital implanted a scaled-down Jarvik-7 heart, 30% smaller than a heart designed to fit into a man. Doctors said the artificial pump was her only hope for survival until a transplant could be performed.

“Her condition has not changed significantly since last night,” Dr. Fredarick Gobel, a cardiologist and spokesman for the implant team, said in a statement released Saturday night.

The statement said hemodialysis was begun Saturday afternoon. The process uses a machine that functions as an artificial kidney to help remove the body’s waste products.