The 42-year-old Brit Matthew Green has set a world record of sort after he lived without the heart for close to two years! All these while, an external blood pump on a trolly with a rechargeable battery did the job of his heart pumping in the blood and out.Green, a pharmaceutical consultant with a seven-year-old son, received a donor heart early last month. But that was after living for 23 months with an external blood pump.
The heart transplant was carried out at Papworth Hospital in Cambridgeshire. Green remains in hospital but doctors are hopeful he will be able to return home soon. “I feel incredibly lucky that I have been given a third lease of life as a result of my heart transplant,” said Green.In July 2011, both main chambers of his heart failed as a result of an unusual form of cardiomyopathy that causes the electrical impulses controlling the heart to go out of rhythm.
He underwent an experimental procedure at Papworth to remove the diseased organ altogether, and instead connect his blood vessels to an external pump.After the procedure his heart function was taken over by a large pump on a trolley. A rechargeable battery powered pump in a backpack allowed him to leave the house for up to three hours at a time.Green was warned against relying on it for longer than two years because of a risk that it may cause fatal blood clots. At 6ft 3 in Green needed a sufficiently powerful heart from a similar-sized donor. He was just within this two-year cutoff when a suitable organ became available last month.
“I am delighted that we were able to find a suitable donor heart for Green to have a heart transplant and I expect him to go home very soon,” Steven Tsui, clinical director of transplant services at Papworth, said.
