Great video clip on VCR
Take a look at the following attachment
http://staging.fusefarm.com.au/ventracor/news/news_content.asp
View the video clip - bound to get your heart pumping !
More interest than ever before in this stock. The preliminary results to be released in Spain this week will be sure to increase the market awareness and share price of this stock !
VCR - National TV coverage - 06 April 06
Thursday April 6th, 2006
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Artificial heart trial results promising
VIEW VIDEO CLIP
TV PROGRAM TRANSCRIPT
HOST KERRY O'BRIEN: Two years ago we looked at an Australian invention undergoing trials to help alleviate the critical predicament facing people who need a heart transplant. Worldwide, only about 3,000 heart transplants are performed each year, while it's estimated that between 100,000 and 200,000 people need one. One alternative that's been tested by cardiac specialists at Melbourne's Alfred Hospital is an Australian-invented mechanical heart.
Since the trial began the artificial heart has been implanted in more than 50 patients around the world and the preliminary results to be presented at a conference in Spain this week, show survival rates equivalent to heart transplants.
The artificial heart is particularly useful as a lifeline for patients who are waiting for a transplant or to extend the lives of those who are too old to be eligible for transplant. Natasha Johnson reports.
NATASHA JOHNSON: Wandering around Victoria's National Gallery, 77-year-old Gerry Levine is very much alive, even though his heart effectively stopped working more than two years ago.
MARIE PARKINSON-LEVINE: It's totally unbelievable. He could hardly walk a few steps just before he had the operation and he looked so pallid and so sick and when I look at him now and he's like 2.5 years older, basically, it's unbelievable. He's getting younger. Whereas, we mortals are getting older.
NATASHA JOHNSON: Two years and four months post implant, Gerry Levine is the longest surviving recipient of an Australian invented artificial heart. The Ventr-Assist device is implanted under the abdominal wall under the ribs and hooked up to the failing heart. A drive line protruding through the patient's stomach is connected to a portable battery pack. Unlike the human heart that contracts, the mechanical version has a continuously spinning rotor ensuring a constant flow of blood and patients therefore have no pulse. What's it like not having a pulse?
GERRY LEVINE: (Laughs).
MARIE PARKINSON-LEVINE: Funny sometimes.
GERRY LEVINE: Funny sometimes. I do carry a little identity disk which says I have to be taken back to the Alfred if there's an emergency and an instruction book which is normally carried in the trolley. It does say don't assume that because there's no pulse the patient is dead. (Laughs).
NATASHA JOHNSON: We first met Gerry Levine as he and a handful of other elderly patients agreed to take part in the first human trial of the Ventr-Assist device at the Alfred Hospital in Melbourne.
PROFESSOR DON ESMORE, ALFRED HOSPITAL: He's brave and he's been shown resolve and that's why he's done well.
NATASHA JOHNSON: Surgeon Don Esmore and the Alfred team has pioneered use of the device which costs $100,000. Three years on it's now been implanted into more than 50 critically ill patients worldwide.
PROFESSOR DON ESMORE: This pump is for people who've had the full gamut of treatment for heart failure. They have no other option either surgically or medically. They are functioning probably 10 per cent of normal with both a poor life expectancy and a very poor quality of life.
NATASHA JOHNSON: In such a seriously ill population there have been deaths, but the latest trial results are showing good survival rates.
PROFESSOR DON ESMORE: The survival rate at one year currently for the trial is 82% and the world figure for heart transplantation is around 80%. At one year if your Ventr-Assist is put in, your chance of living a year are the same as a heart transplant and currently we are looking at a 2-year survival which would appear to be around the 60% mark. Heart transplants are maybe a bit better than that, maybe 70 or 75% but we're talking about evolving technology.
NATASHA JOHNSON: The candidates are either over 65s like Gerry Levine who are too old or sick to qualify for a heart transplant or younger patients like 17-year-old Kim Cowcher who are trying to stay alive long enough for a donor heart to become available. In an unlucky run of illness Kim Cowcher suffered non-Hodgkins lymphoma, a paralysing auto-immune disease and then heart failure from her chemotherapy. Last July she fell into a coma and her mother was told her only hope of survival was the artificial heart which was really only designed for adults.
SHARON NICHOLSON: It was very scary, but given the fact there was no other options, we don't have a choice, it is either she turn the machine off or try this. So when you are faced with that, there's no decision to make.
KIM COWCHER: I woke up on my 17th birthday out of my coma and told it was two weeks after my fly back and I'm like, "No, it's the next day." And I'm told "No, Kim it's two weeks later". It was my birthday and they were explaining to me I'm on this machine and you can feel it whirring and I felt all of these things in your stomach and you've got a big machine there and a cord. They said, "We don't know how you'll go on this." I was sitting there thinking, "Am I going to live or die?" They couldn't give you a direct answer.
NATASHA JOHNSON: Kim Cowcher is the youngest Australian to receive the artificial heart and while she requires a carer 24 hours a day and ongoing hospital monitoring, she can enjoy time out with her family and continue her schooling.
KIM COWCHER: I thought it was a gutter ball.
NATASHA JOHNSON: But she and her mum are still getting used to her tethered existence to the power pack and its batteries which need changing every three to four hours.
KIM COWCHER: It is like having a little friend that's stuck to your pocket. Every 2 seconds, every time you get up to go to the toilet get up to get a drink you've got to take your friend with you. It's very stressful at times. I have got up once and forgot it and it came flying back and hit the wall. That was a bit funny but I didn't hurt myself.
SHARON NICHOLSON: I'm scared a lot of times you wake up in the morning and I instantly listen for the alarm or wake up through the might and think is it alarming. It beeps like a truck backing and if I hear that I yell out, "Kimberley!" She says, "It's not me."
MARIE PARKINSON-LEVINE: There's a plug down there. We can plug you in alright. That was easier than I thought.
NATASHA JOHNSON: While they have plenty of backup batteries, Gerry Levine and wife Marie prefer to plug in whenever you can and wherever they can.
MARIE PARKINSON-LEVINE: ...and your reserve is full, so no problems.
NATASHA JOHNSON: As Gerry Levine and Kim Cowcher cherish the days they might not have otherwise seen, a new trial of the Ventr-Assist is being planned with the hope that current survival rates can ultimately be pushed out to five years.
GERRY LEVINE: I'm quite happy it should go on for as long as possible.
KIM COWCHER: Oh, yes! I feel normal. I don't feel there's something wrong with me because I'm with my family and we're all laughing and smiling and having fun, rather than sitting around a hospital bed having that time bomb tick off, wondering is it time, isn't it time?
O’BRIEN: Natasha Johnson with that story of hope for young and old.