He has no heartbeat, but he can live like a normal person

Audit expert: Wang Xin

Deputy Chief Physician, Department of Cardiology, Jilin People's Hospital

In 2007, Wang Shiqi fainted on the playground in Shenyang. After being sent to the hospital, the young man from Northeast China, who was in his prime, was told that his heart was dormant by a disease, which was dilated cardiomyopathy . When the disease develops to the terminal stage, there is only one treatment method - heart transplant. In 2019, Wang Shiqi's condition worsened and he was sent to Beijing for treatment. In the previous 15 years, he had been receiving conservative drug treatment and waiting for a heart transplant match...

2019 was a turning point in Wang Shiqi's life. At that time, China had independently developed a fully magnetically levitated artificial heart , which was undergoing clinical trials. Wang Shiqi, who was at the critical moment of worsening condition and believed in Chinese technology, chose to implant the fourth-generation magnetically levitated artificial heart. Facts have proved that his choice was right. Today, Wang Shiqi lives his life as usual and everything is on the right track.

Wang Shiqi shows the source of his artificial heart｜Tianmu News

How does heart failure occur?

Heart failure , the abbreviation of heart failure, refers to a syndrome in which the heart's pumping function is impaired due to various reasons and the cardiac output cannot meet the basic metabolic needs of the body's tissues. The main manifestations are dyspnea, limited activity, fluid retention, etc. Heart failure is not an independent disease, but the terminal stage of the development of heart disease.

The main reasons include decreased myocardial contractility and increased cardiac load, and heart diseases that are likely to induce heart failure include coronary heart disease, myocardial infarction, cardiomyopathy, myocarditis, etc. In addition to heart disease, common behaviors that are likely to induce heart failure in daily life include excessive physical labor, drinking a lot of cold drinks immediately after strenuous exercise, consuming too much salt in daily diet, and excessive mood swings.

Comic about heart failure Source: Sohu

In order to reduce the possibility of heart failure, we should try not to drink cold drinks after strenuous exercise, and drink room temperature drinks after the heart rhythm slowly returns to normal; we should also avoid eating foods with high salt and high oil content. In daily life, we also need to regulate our emotions reasonably and reduce the occurrence of extreme emotions such as extreme joy, extreme sadness, and extreme anger.

What is an artificial heart?

An artificial heart, also called an artificial heart, is an artificial organ developed by scientists to save the lives of more and more heart disease patients. An artificial heart is an implantable mechanical device that acts like a mechanical pump, pumping blood from the heart to organs throughout the body to achieve the function of a normal natural heart, thereby supplying blood to the human body.

An artificial heart will alternately deliver blood to the lungs and other parts of the body, rather than delivering blood at the same time like a natural heart. Artificial hearts are classified into two types: a variable-artificial heart (VAD) and a total artificial heart (TAH). The main function of a variable-artificial heart is to pump blood into the aorta through a pump to assist the heart in its normal work. It can be used to improve circulatory insufficiency or temporarily maintain the patient's circulatory condition. A TAH is used to completely replace the function of the heart and maintain normal blood circulation throughout the body.

The first three generations of artificial hearts independently developed in my country

Artificial hearts can be traced back to the first artificial heart developed by Alexander Carrel and his assistant Lindbergh in the 1930s, which was used in clinical treatment by Gibbons in 1953. China developed the first ventricular assist device in 1965, and the "Chinese heart" in Wang Shiqi's body is the fourth-generation magnetically suspended artificial heart, which is an implantable left ventricular assist system CH-VAD.

Wang Shiqi once said that it is magical - no matter how it falls, it always keeps spinning in one direction. This powerful "Chinese heart" is inseparable from the principle of magnetic levitation .

The cavity of the magnetic levitation artificial heart contains a suspended rotor, with an electromagnet above the rotor and a permanent magnet below, which can make the rotor levitate. When the current passing through the electromagnet changes, the magnetic field also changes, so that the rotor can rotate, thereby driving blood flow and helping the body to achieve blood circulation.

What are the applications of artificial hearts?

According to official data, as of 2021, nearly 100 left ventricular assist device implantations have been performed in China, and the Food and Drug Administration has approved three clinical trials on implantable left ventricular assist devices (artificial hearts) for the treatment of end-stage heart failure. This fully demonstrates the important role of artificial hearts in the treatment of heart failure.

"Chinese Heart" artificial heart demonstration model selected from｜Tianmu News

Artificial hearts are mainly used in three scenarios. First, artificial hearts can be used as a long-term replacement for the heart, which is exactly the case with Wang Shiqi's "Chinese Heart". Second, they are used in the transitional recovery period of heart failure patients. Third, they can be used as a transitional method before heart transplantation to maintain normal blood circulation before the patient finds a heart donor.

In China, there are 13.7 million heart failure patients each year, but only 600 patients can be matched with donors each year, which is a huge difference. However, with the emergence of the "Chinese Heart", the effectiveness and convenience of artificial hearts have been greatly improved. They can be installed and removed, and can be used for long-term or short-term transition, which brings new hope to the treatment of heart failure patients. As a new generation of artificial heart, the magnetic levitation heart has many advantages such as convenience and low wear. At a time when heart donors are in short supply, breakthroughs in new artificial heart technology will bring a new trend of development.