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Quebecer Fitted With Mechanical Heart
By PETER RAKOBOWCHUK, Canadian Press

MONTREAL (CP) - A 65-year-old Quebec man who received a new long-term mechanical heart last month is being described as the only living Canadian without a pulse.


Mechanical heart recipient Gerard Langevin shows a model of the mechanism he has implanted in him at a news conference in Montreal Wednesday, Dec. 13, 2006. (CP)

Dr. Renzo Cecere implanted the "Heartmate II" mechanical heart into Gerard Langevin in an three-hour operation Nov. 23. Officials at the McGill University Health Centre say the device, which is about the size of a flashlight battery, could last up to 10 years. That is longer than other models which are thought to be good for only two or three years.

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The new mechanical heart, which is powered by batteries located in pouches on Langevin's body, provides a continuous flow of blood so the patient has no pulse.

"Mr. Langevin happens to be the only individual currently living in Canada without a pulse and without a measurable blood pressure," Cecere said Wednesday.

Langevin admitted to reporters that, before the operation, he felt his time was up after he suffered his second heart attack in July.

He had the other in 2002.

"I was finished. . . I had no time left. . . I probably had only a few months left to live," Langevin said.

He admitted he was afraid and hesitant about having the implant.

"My wife pushed me a lot to have the operation and I don't regret it."

Langevin, who comes from Coteau-du-Lac, southwest of Montreal, added it was "better than staying out for the count."

Dr. Nadia Giannetti, director of the MUHC's heart transplant program, said Langevin was deemed an unsuitable candidate for a heart transplant because of other medical conditions.

"Previously, we would have had little to offer and his heart would have continued to deteriorate," she said.

Giannetti said the entire procedure cost $100,000, with the tab being picked up by the hospital foundation.

The "Heartmate II" is currently part of a clinical trial at several hospitals in Canada and the United States.

Only one other Canadian hospital-the Toronto General Hospital-was invited to take part in the study.

The device has yet to be approved for use in either country.

Doctors says Langevin is well enough to be released from hospital in the coming days.

Is he actually alive?

oh yeah, he's alive, he's quoted several time throughout the article...


Right in the opening it says, and I quote:

Damn! That's downright freaky! A great accomplishment of medical science though.

You got that right, it realy is very freaky...

so even if he dies they will have to wait for the body to turn that a bad snell i can tell you

we are moving to an age where machines will one day make up our entire bodies... the line between humanity and machines will blur, the core of humanity will rest in a chunk of grey matter inside a steel shell. And it will bring a new age of chaos upon us, suddenly we won't have to worry as much about hackers for our computers as much as we have to worry about our own bodies being hacked...

As much as that sounds impossible look at what we can do now, artificial limbs for amputees, artificial hearts for patients with bad hearts, dialysis for kidney troubles (sure it's miserable, but i'm sure they're working on a way to improve it through implants) artificial lungs for breathing troubles.They're even working on recontructing neural tissues to give mobility to the paralysed, and I'd bet their working on a way to create artificial neural tissues for spinal cord problems and patients with neural tissue damages, brain surgery is more common and safer now than ever. And technology is steadily improving, by the next cenury I expect there to be a first true full body cyborg person.