San Diego : Man With Jarvik Heart Receives Human Heart
An Escondido man who earlier this month became the first patient in California to receive a Jarvik-7 mechanical heart was given a new human heart Sunday afternoon in a transplant at Sharp Memorial Hospital. Officials called the operation “very successful.”
Randy Dunlap, 34, was listed in critical condition after the six-hour surgical procedure, but hospital spokeswoman Cindy Cohagen said that “all signs are optimistic.”
“This is really a medical marvel,” Cohagen said. “The Jarvik worked flawlessly for 12 days. It saved Randy’s life. It made it possible for him to live while we searched for a new human heart.”
Dunlap’s saga began June 15 when he received a human heart transplant designed to relieve his familial cardiomyopathy, a chronic degenerative heart condition that is often inherited. When the human heart began to falter for unknown reasons, doctors attempted to bolster the organ with a balloon pump and ventricular assist mechanisms.
But those steps failed, so surgeons turned to the Jarvik-7, an experimental device used as a temporary bridge until a human heart can be obtained for transplant patients. The three-hour operation was successful, and Dunlap reportedly had done well while hospital officials searched for a human replacement.
On Sunday, one finally turned up. Cohagen declined to identify its source, citing the sensitivity of obtaining donor organs. But she did say the human heart was flown in from outside San Diego County and arrived at Montgomery Field just before 1 p.m., when the surgery began.
“Now Randy is really just another transplant patient,” Cohagen said. “Thanks to the Jarvik, he’s our 19th transplant.”
Dunlap, a backhoe operator who had been unable to work because of his heart ailment, was the first patient in the state to receive the experimental device, which has been implanted in 60 patients worldwide since August, 1985.
In December, Sharp Memorial became the 15th medical center in the United States to win federal permission to implant the Jarvik heart. Hospitals in Pittsburgh, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Tucson, Houston and Gainsesville, Fla., also have used the device.
Sharp officials spent six months preparing for their first transplant operation. On Sunday, Cohagen said the decision to seek federal approval to use the Jarvik had been validated.
“We made the commitment to heart transplants to help people with no other choice,” she said. “The Jarvik is a logical continuation of that commitment.”
The Jarvik heart, which sells for roughly $18,000, was first implanted in a human patient in 1982. Designed by Robert Jarvik, the controversial device was at first planned as a permanent replacement for the human heart. Its first recipient, Barney Clark, survived 112 days.
Dr. William DeVries, a Utah surgeon who pioneered the Jarvik heart, remains the only physician with federal approval to implant the device as a permanent substitute for a human heart. He has not performed a transplant since 1985.
