(Circulation. 2001;104:e9050.)
© 2001 American Heart Association, Inc.
Circulation Newswriter
First AbioCor Trial Patient Dies
Robert Tools, who was the first patient in the trial of the AbioCor, the world’s first totally implantable heart, died November 30, 2001, after uncontrollable bleeding that led to multi-organ failure. The physicians at the University of Louisville, Ky, who implanted the heart in Mr Tools, age 59, on July 2, 2001, said they had had problems maintaining Mr Tools’ anticoagulation status almost from the beginning of his disease.
Mr Tools, who suffered from serious heart failure after sequential heart attacks, as well as diabetes, was 59 when he underwent the experimental procedure. He lived almost 5 months on the artificial pump. However, the problems with gastrointestinal bleeding began early and continued. On November 11, 2001, Mr Tools suffered a stroke because doctors were unable to continue his anticoagulation medication as a result of continued gastrointestinal bleeding. Surgeons said that malfunction or complications from the artificial heart were not to blame for Mr Tools’ death, which they attributed to the comorbid conditions from which he suffered.
The sixth patient to receive the implantable heart died of uncontrollable bleeding on November 29, 2001, within a day of receiving the artificial organ at St Luke’s Episcopal Hospital, Houston, Tex. Surgeon O.H. Frazier, MD, said the death resulted from coagulopathy related to the patient’s longstanding heart failure and cardiac surgery that required anticoagulant treatment.
If nothing else, the 2 deaths demonstrate that much remains unknown about the place such devices will take in the armamentarium of weapons against heart disease. In the past,