The Future Heart
Inside Health
BBC
4.4 • 575 Ratings
🗓️ 16 January 2018
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It's fifty years since the first human heart transplant but the number of donor organs - about 200 per year in the UK - remains dwarfed by demand. About 2,000 people under the age of 65 a year will die of heart failure without a transplant.
Kevin Fong explores new ways that people with heart failure can be helped. He talks to Dr Doris Taylor, director of the Center for Cell and Organ Biotechnology, at the Texas Heart Institute, in Houston, about her research into growing hearts from stem cells. Kevin discusses the prospect of taking organs from pigs and using them for so-called xenotransplants with cardiothoracic surgeon Prof John Dark, of Newcastle University, who says this approach has not delivered benefits.
An alternative to a heart transplant is the left ventricular assist device (LVAD) - an artificial pump that helps the left side of the heart do its job. This has shrunk from a large external piece of kit to a tiny battery-operated device that can be implanted into the chest. For the first year, they are as effective as a transplant, but they have a risk of infection, and they are not always easy to live with. Kevin meets patient Vincenzo Avanzato who had an LVAD that became infected and then a successful transplant.
Kevin also talks to surgeon Mr Andre Simon of Harefield Hospital about the future of completely mechanical hearts made of metal and plastic.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, I'm Greg Jenna and good news, Your Dead to Me is back for a new series. Here we go. Yes, we'll explore Emperor Nero's notorious reign with Professor Marybeard and Patton Oswald. I would not want my daughter having the remote control, not alone an empire. We'll dissect the decadent life of Philippe Duke-Dor-Leon with Tom Allen. I've often tried to pretend I'm an aristocrat |
| 0:20.9 | and being very quickly knocked down. |
| 0:23.0 | And there'll be so much more with comedians like Olga Koch, |
| 0:25.4 | Mike Mosniak and Ria Elena. |
| 0:26.9 | I'm excited. |
| 0:27.6 | You're dead to me, the comedy podcast that takes history seriously. |
| 0:30.9 | Listen first on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:33.5 | This is a download from the BBC. |
| 0:35.1 | To find out more, visit BBC.com.ukuk slash radio four. |
| 0:41.4 | Yes, we're a big family and we've got a big problem, actually. |
| 0:46.5 | And you're paying for the wedding? |
| 0:48.2 | Well, of course. I work. |
| 0:50.9 | Fifty years ago, Vincenzo Avanso wouldn't have survived his diseased heart. |
| 0:56.5 | And yet here he is in front of me, impeccably dressed, |
| 0:59.9 | looking forward to his daughter's wedding, |
| 1:02.0 | an apparent picture of health with a donated heart beating in his chest. |
| 1:07.4 | That was a dream that is coming through, in style. |
| 1:12.8 | And if this is what we can do now, what expectations should we have of the future? |
| 1:18.1 | We're trying to successfully build a human heart in the laboratory. |
| 1:23.5 | We're trying to build therapies that last forever. |
| 1:27.8 | But before considering that, it's worth reminding ourselves how far we've come in such a short |
| 1:33.5 | space of time. Here's André Simone, transplant surgeon and director of heart and lung transplantation |
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