Girl Gets DeBakey Heart Pump

A 6-year-old Houston girl at Texas Children's Hospital on Friday became the first patient in the world to receive a DeBakey child heart pump.

Ann Grudziecke was recovering Friday night after receiving the device, which is a scaled-down model of the original pump designed by renowned heart surgeon Dr. Michael DeBakey.

"The idea of having an implantable pump for children is really a giant step forward," Dr. Charles D. Fraser Jr., the chief of cardiovascular surgery at Texas Children's Heart Center told the Houston Chronicle. "We hope this is the first step for developing even smaller devices for children."

Fraser, who performed the surgery, told CBS News, Radio on Saturday that Ann "had a good night. The pump seems to be working well. We're cautiously optimistic."

Earlier, he said Ann still is very ill and will remain in the hospital until her heart transplant. It could take several months to receive a new heart, Fraser said.

The DeBakey ventricular assist device for children helps weakened hearts pump blood throughout the patient's body by supplementing the pumping ability of the left ventricle, the main pumping chamber of the heart.

Ann's heart muscle had thickened, causing it to stiffen and deteriorate, the newspaper reported.

Several U.S. children, including a 22-month-old Indianapolis boy, have been implanted with another heart pump, a European device called the Berlin Heart.

The U.S Food and Drug Administration earlier this month gave heart transplant centers the option to use the DeBakey pump on an emergency basis. Prior to that, Fraser said, surgeons had to use pumps that worked on the outside of the body and worked only temporarily.

"Historically, when children's hearts were failing, it was kind of a desperate situation," he said. "Now we have a good option."

Adult patients have survived for more than a year with the DeBakey heart pump. It has been implanted into more than 200 patients.

In recent years heart surgeons have turned more toward heart pumps as an alternative to artificial hearts.

Several pumps are available in the United States, including HeartMate by Thoratec of Pleasanton, Calif., and the Novacor by World Heart of Ottawa, Canada. Both devices are in thousands of patients and both are larger than the DeBakey pump.

The device implanted into Ann, manufactured by MicroMed Technology of Houston, is a smaller version of the company's regular heart pump, the Chronicle says. The new children's pump -- the MicroMed/DeBakey child ventricular assist device -- is even smaller than the adult pump, which measures 1 inch by 3 inches and weighs only 4 ounces, the newspaper notes.

The Chronicle adds that the DeBakey pump has roots in the space program.

"Nearly two decades ago DeBakey and another surgeon, Dr. George Noon, performed heart transplant surgery on NASA engineer David Saucier," the newspaper explains. "The success of the procedure prompted Saucier to consider the possibility of adapting space technology to treat heart disease.

"Saucier found the answer inside the shuttle's fuel tanks, where a powerful pump passes high-pressure liquid hydrogen from chamber to chamber. NASA funded research to miniaturize the pump," the Chronicle continued.