Under the FDA guidelines, Spiller will remain in the hospital until a donor heart becomes available for transplant. Spiller has lived with heart failure since 1987, and her condition has progressively worsened over the years. According to Dr. Reynolds M. Delgado, III, a heart failure and transplantation cardiologist at St. Luke's and the Texas Heart Institute, Spiller was admitted to the hospital in March with severe heart failure. She was unable to walk and became so sick that she could barely complete a sentence due to her shortness of breath. The pump fits directly into the left ventricle and takes over the function of pushing oxygenated blood throughout the body when the heart is unable to do so on its own.
Spiller wears the two-pound external battery in a pouch.
The Jarvik 2000 heart pump, placed as a bridge to transplant, fits in the left ventricle and pumps oxygenated blood throughout the body. Dr. Robert Jarvik, president of Jarvik Heart, Inc., said that the goal for decades has been to create a device that would allow a patient to return to a normal lifestyle. The importance of Mrs. Spiller's experience here will be that this is the first time we have had the opportunity under the FDA investigational protocol to utilize this technology and to show any example of what this work is all about. To be eligible under the protocol, a patient must have end-stage heart failure, be on the transplant waiting list and meet certain size requirements. Dr. O.H. Frazier, chief of cardiopulmonary transplantation and director of surgical research at the Texas Heart Institute and chief of transplant service at St. Luke's, said five patients will receive the device as part of the study.