| Texas Children's Hospital in Houston announced in June 2011 that it is the first pediatric hospital in the United States to implant an artificial heart into the chest of a 17-year-old patient as the only option to save his life. The history-making patient underwent a rare 15-hour operation on May 22 and is currently recovering at Texas Children's Hospital. He is one of three congenital heart patients in the nation to get such a device. Jordan Merecka, 17, born with his heart on the wrong side of his chest (Dextrocardia) and his heart vessels backwards as well (corrected transpositon of the great arteries) underwent a fifteen-hour heart surgery on May 22 at Texas Children's Heart Center, where he was implanted with SynCardia Total Artificial Heart, a pulsatile blood pump which mimics the pumping action of the native heart. The Total Artificial Heart was implanted in this pediatric patient as a bridge to donor-heart transplantation. www.texaschildrens.org |
