21st Century Necromancer

Installing a pump in the heart might initially sound like something out of a science fiction novel or pulp literature.

Although the development of modern medical technology has made the implantation of auxiliary devices into the heart possible, with things like pacemakers already widely used, the idea of implanting a pump into the human body still seems somewhat unbelievable.

We often hear about American doctors using artificial pumps to replace necrotic hearts of patients, or how a pump installed in an elderly British heart needs a battery change every six hours... But a closer investigation often reveals these are just what people call soft articles, lacking any case support.

Despite the lack of credibility in these soft articles, the research of artificial hearts and the implantation of pumps to assist heart function is not something new or a science fantasy, but a longstanding research topic in the medical community, which in recent years has gradually become a mature treatment method for various cardiac diseases.

For instance, the intra-aortic balloon pump, commonly used in the rescue and treatment of patients with cardiac insufficiency, is an auxiliary device implanted near the heart's aorta that helps pump blood more efficiently from the left ventricle into the aorta, reducing the heart's load.

Moreover, artificial hearts have gradually transitioned from a concept to clinical applications in recent years, successfully saving the lives of many patients.

The research on artificial hearts began in 1982 when Dr. William DeVries and his surgical team at the University of Utah Medical Center implanted the first human artificial heart, named Jarvik, into a heart disease patient named Clark, pioneering artificial heart transplantation and shocking the world.

This first artificial heart was connected by two 2-meter-long flexible tubes to an external machine, with compressed air maintaining its beating, simulating a normal heart's pulsations to work.

After receiving the artificial heart, Clark could stand up and take a few steps, even eat on his own. This plastic heart beat nearly 13 million times in his chest cavity, supporting 112 days of life.

Yet, the technology of artificial hearts at the time was still quite immature, with a few successful cases, but the longest-living patient only survived for 620 days.

Thus, the United States mandated in 1984 that the Jarvik artificial heart could only be used as a temporary measure to extend the life of dying patients while awaiting a human heart transplant.

Subsequently, the research on artificial hearts faced many difficulties until August 11, 1993, when the Cardiac Institute in Ottawa, Canada announced they had developed the first permanent artificial heart.

However, artificial hearts were still restricted by legal regulations and the medical conditions of the time until 1995, when a 64-year-old retired British film producer became the world's first person to receive a permanent electric artificial heart.

Yet, with the ever-evolving technology and progress in medical research, artificial hearts have even developed to the third generation, with over two thousand people receiving artificial heart transplants each year.

Artificial hearts were initially used for severe heart disease patients awaiting heart transplants, but now they're more frequently used in heart failure therapy, as over eight million heart failure patients worldwide await heart transplants each year, and there are simply too few heart donors.

As for how long a patient can live after an artificial heart transplant? In fact, the longest-living patient with an artificial heart transplant has survived over twenty years. In theory, this technology can extend a patient's life by twenty to twenty-five years, with clinical statistics showing a survival rate of over 50% for more than ten years, and this period is expected to continue extending as technology advances.

While artificial hearts do not have rejection reactions compared to heart transplants, they are more prone to infection.

After all, the most commonly used artificial hearts nowadays still need to be connected to an external control device through wires, which undoubtedly increases the risk of infection.

However, for heart failure patients, this is an acceptable cost, as the constant threat of heart rate failure, which could be fatal at any moment, is far more deadly than the risk of infection.

The situation of the patient in front of us should normally have been diagnosed with incomplete heart development after birth, undergoing heart surgery to improve heart blood supply, affecting lung development, and improving low blood oxygen levels with procedures for septal reconstruction.

But now she's already 28 years old, making such surgeries less effective, which is why Chen Yu is considering installing a pump in her heart, using heart failure therapy to improve her heart condition.

Although, with Chen Yu's ability, creating a new heart for her or repairing her original heart would not be difficult, these approaches would seem too much like science fiction compared to adding an artificial heart to assist her heart, especially since even cloned organ transplant technology is still just a laboratory idea, while artificial hearts are already a sufficiently mature technology.

Additionally, artificial hearts have now evolved to the third generation, with lightweight and compact blood pumps installed on the heart, powered by portable power sources and implanted batteries, to assist or even completely replace heart function.

According to the condition of the current patient, to achieve a complete cure, it would not only be necessary to install a blood pump on her heart but also to reconstruct the septum between the ventricles and atria, which would be a surgical procedure with a high level of complexity and difficulty.

Fortunately, this patient's heart is only underdeveloped, and her heart itself is still healthy, so installing a blood pump will not significantly affect her life; the only issue might be the need to carry an external battery regularly to power the blood pump.

Of course, if the patient herself is unwilling to undergo such a procedure, Chen Yu would not force her, since for a normal person, living with a battery, pump, and a bunch of tubes and wires is something difficult to accept.

Moreover, given this patient's condition, not undergoing the surgery does not pose a significant problem, as she is already 28, and her body has adapted to her heart, with no apparent issues at the moment.

However, as she ages and her body gradually deteriorates, various problems might become more apparent, potentially affecting her life and well-being in the future.

This is why Chen Yu suggests she undergoes surgery now, to solve the problem before issues arise in the future rather than waiting to address them after they occur.