By: Muzhaffar Abdullah
The nation was saddened over the news of the death of Tee Hui Yi, 19, who made headlines in 2007 following her double heart transplant surgery. Hui Yi from Batu Pahat, Johor had a second heart transplant within 24 hours after her body rejected the first heart that was transplanted into her. It was merely a miracle that a second heart became available and the heart that previously belonged to a 15 year old stranger, became hers. The success story of the cardiothoracic team from National Heart Institute (IJN) captured the heart of millions of people around the country who had followed Hui Yi’s health progress since she was 13.
Tee Hui Yi passed away at the Batu Pahat Hospital on 18th September 2012, the day she was to have started work as a kindergarten teacher.
On October this year, Jakub Halik from
Czech Republic died from liver failure at the age of 37. He died after
surviving more than six months without a real heart. He had his heart replaced
with two mechanical pumps after an aggressive cancerous tumour was found. He
was awaiting a suitable donor when he died.
Both Hui Yi and Jakub, albeit from continent afar and a huge age gap between them had their life depended on man-made mechanical structure for a considerable period of time. Hui Yi had it earlier when she was 13. She was like Jakub, waiting for a heart donor. She had underwent a five-hour operation at the IJN to implant an external mechanical heart made of a 9.8kg device. The device was placed outside her abdomen and connected to the left side of her heart.
For Jakub, despite being pulseless and unable to feel his own heartbeat (as he had no heart), he described his post-surgical experience as normal. He felt that his body was functioning normally. Although he had to always carry a battery pack to power the mechanical heart, he was able to walk around and use the hospital gym. He felt much like a healthy man.
Although these stories ended sadly, they told us how much potential artificial organs have in the future of medicine. With ingenious understanding of how the body functions, researchers have been able to design and produce devices that could be implanted or integrated to replace a natural organ.
These devices serve the
purpose of restoring the normal function of our body. The
uses of current state of the art artificial
hearts devices
for instance is hoped to be able to sustain life
for up to 18 months for patients awaiting transplants whose
death is imminent, such as in the case of Hui Yi and Jakub.
Artificial organs are also helpful in improving the patient's ability for self care as in the use of artificial limb. The use of cochlear implantation has become among standard proposed management to improve patient’s ability to interact socially among hearing impaired individuals.
Current progress brings even more exciting promises. In the near future, we might expect to see the use of bioartificial; part artificial and part our own body. This will potentially provide us with abundant supply of ready-made replacement livers, kidneys and hearts, by being partly built in the lab and partly built inside the body.
There has
been ongoing research using tissue engineering technique to build organs using
patient’s own cells. Success had been reported in the Unites States after the
researchers in Wake Forest University, North Carolina has successfully
transplanted laboratory grown bladder into a patient in 2006.
Tissue
engineers used a different approach in developing these bioartificial organs as
compared to the more old-fashioned artificial hearts used by Hui Yi. They are
trying to develop something which is considered more human. The ultimate aim is
to make organs with cells, blood vessels and nerves to become a living and
functioning part of the body.
They are
trying to execute this by manipulating the body’s own natural repair mechanism.
The two body’s own cells that are being used are the stem cells and organ
scaffolding. Stem cells has the potential to develop into any tissue in the
body while organ scaffolding gives organs their shape and in which cells embed
themselves to form organs. This stem cells-seeded fibrous web (scaffolding)
will keep the stem cells in the right place and this hopefully will allow the
new organ to grow.
The
prospect with this proposition has been bright; a plastic form of artificial
scaffold has been used in a pioneering windpipe replacement surgery for a man
with cancer. The patient is currently doing well 15 months after the procedure.
The
bioartificials are also hoped to eliminate the usual risks associated with
current standard organ transplant such as immune rejection as it will not be
using foreign cells. This also means the use of drugs which suppress the immune
system will not be needed and patient will be less prone to infection.
Further
expansion of the potential therapeutic uses of artificial organs has also been
suggested in other areas such as vision, memory and information processing and the
research is proceeding. There has even been speculation that we might be able
to enhance our memory through implantation of related cells to the brain.
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