Panel Seeks Reversal of Research Cutoff : More Funding for Artificial Heart Asked

A scientific advisory panel Thursday called for the reversal of a National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute decision last week to eliminate funding for the development of a total artificial heart, calling the device “technically feasible, clinically important and timely.”

The 19-member council, which advises the institute on matters of scientific and medical policy, said in a written statement that it recognizes that financing decisions “are constrained by funds available” but “we strongly urge that the additional funds be made available” to continue the program.

Last week, Dr. Claude Lenfant, director of the institute, said the agency had decided that replacing the heart totally with an artificial device “still has a lot of problems” that will not be resolved in the near future. Recipients of past permanent artificial hearts died of infection or stroke caused by blood clots that developed within the artificial device.

Device for Left Ventricle

The agency said it was terminating the total artificial heart grant program and would fund research only into the development of a self-contained, long-term “single-ventricular” device. This would be inserted into the left ventricle of the heart, the chamber that carries most of the workload for the four-chamber organ.

Institute officials said the council resolution, which was approved unanimously, eventually will be sent to Health and Human Services Secretary Otis R. Bowen.

Congress, however, in effect could overturn the institute decision by approving additional funds for heart device research, and there is already some support for this on Capitol Hill. Sen. John Heinz (R-Pa.) has said he is considering introducing legislation to appropriate more money for the total artificial heart program.

Lenfant said funding would be reconsidered if more money becomes available. “If Congress would give us the money, we could use it very wisely in this artificial heart program,” he said.

Device Fully Implantable

The heart now under development is unlike the Jarvik-7, which was tethered by tubes from the body to an outside power source, a design that critics have said may have been responsible for the life-threatening infections. The new device is planned to be fully implantable and driven by internal batteries.

“The entire electronic control system is inside the body, in addition to the motor that drives it--everything is inside and miniaturized,” said Dr. David Lederman, chief executive officer of Abiomed Inc. of Danvers, Mass., one of four grant recipients developing the device. “One is not only trying to extend life but to develop the quality of life.”

John Moise, vice president for technology of Nimbus Medical Inc. of Rancho Cordova, Calif., another of the companies involved in the research, said his firm’s artificial heart research program will stop if the money--about $22.5 million over 5 1/2 years divided among four institutions--is not restored.

Not ‘Making Lots of Money’

“It would be nice if we were making lots of money that we could put into it but we aren’t, and neither are other people in this business,” Moise said. “In long-term research projects like this, our government is the only agency that supports this kind of work.”

Further, he said, “there are only a limited number of researchers in the United States who work in this area” and without government support “this research capability could be dissipated.”

The research program, which was slated to begin in January, is in its earliest stages, Lederman said. “Two of the companies had built prototypes and there have been some early animal experiments but much work remains to be done,” he said.

The University of Utah and Pennsylvania State University/Hershey Medical Center are the other two institutions developing the device.