健康英语新闻:1st UK plastic heart patient goes home

BEIJING, Aug. 3 (Xinhuanet) -- The first man in Britain who received a complete plastic heart is allowed to leave hospital and live a relatively normal life at home.

Matthew Green, 40, who was dying from arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy, was awaiting a transplant when his condition became so bad that the doctors at Papworth Hospital, the world renowned heart center near Cambridge, decided to give him Britain’s first ever full artificial heart.

During a six-hour operation on June 9, 2011, surgeons replaced Mr Green's damaged heart with the device which will serve the role of muscles and ventricles.

Unlike previous artificial hearts, they have usually only replaced parts of the organ, the new one is powered by a pump which sits outside the body and can be held in a backpack or shoulder bag.

All Mr Green has to do is replace the batteries in the pump every few hours and the heart should last up to three years.

Transplant milestones

1964 US National Institutes of Health starts artificial heart programme.

1966 First transplant of partial mechanical heart, to assist pumping of ventricle.

1969 Texas man receives first total artificial heart transplant. After 64 hours on the mechanical device received a donor organ, but died within two days.

1982 Artificial heart designed by Utah University doctor Robert Jarvik implanted into man who survived for 112 days.

2001 First surgical implant of internally powered artificial heart, which was charged via transduction through skin.