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Courtesy of Dr. Giacomo Mugnai
The chest x-ray of an Italian man who has two hearts.
At first there didn’t seem to be anything unusual about the man who, in 2010, reported to a Verona, Italy emergency room. He was short of breath, sweating, and had low blood pressure – cardiovascular trouble, no doubt. E.R. doctors see similar symptoms all the time.
But this man was very different indeed. He had two hearts.
“We haven’t ever seen anything similar to this case before,” Dr. Giacomo Mugnai said in an email.
It turned out that a few years earlier, the man had undergone a procedure known as a heterotopic heart transplant. Unlike an orthotopic transplant, in which one organ is removed and another put in its place, a heterotopic transplant pairs a new organ with a diseased one.
“We see this in cardiac patients or kidney patients, sometimes,” explained Dr. Rade Vukmir, professor of emergency medicine at Temple University and a spokesman for the American College of Emergency Physicians. “Surgeons might leave a kidney in place if it’s too much trouble to take out, or if there is hope for recovery of a kidney, or a heart, after a period of time” of being helped by the new organ.
In the case of the ailing Italian, reported in the Annals of Emergency Medicine, the transplant team had mated his new heart with his malfunctioning old one. Chambers and blood vessels of the two hearts were married so that the new heart could support the old one.
But there’s a risk, explained Vukmir. “You can develop two independent heart rhythms, especially in a scenario where one heart gets a little better,” he said.
That’s what happened to the 71-year-old Italian. At first doctors tried drug therapy to correct the dysrhythmia problem, but his blood pressure continued to drop and eventually his heart – actually his hearts – stopped, he lost consciousness, and stopped breathing. One jolt with a heart defibrillator brought him back. Surgeons then replaced his implanted pacemaker, and today he’s healthy, and still with two hearts.
Such patients are extremely rare these days, Vukmir explained. In the 1990s and into the 2000s, external machines called ventricular assist devices could be used to do the job the second heart in the Italian man was doing, but they were enormous, and enormously expensive. Putting in a second heart was a workable alternative. Today, though, the devices have shrunk to a manageable, portable size and heterotopic heart transplants are almost never done. Fortunately, Vukmir said, well-trained E.R. doctors are made aware that some people are still walking around with bodies that give new meaning to the term “a lotta heart.”
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Leave a Comment:
Well, it's obvious that he's a Timelord.
or a Klingon scout. But they dont like to talk about the "situation" that made them look more human-like in the original series.
My first thought, too.
Nice! Love Dr. Who...
Dr. Who is just terribad
Duh, where is his Tardis?!?!?!?!
He's lucky, some people don't have a heart at all..
dano-3878024
Let's not talk about Republicans here.
Bummer. How ordinary.
I wonder if all those heart beats , keep him up at night..??
am also a Dr. Who fan and was thinking the same thing. This is pretty wild; I had never heard of this before. I am surprised there is enough room in the chest cavity to fit two hearts without causing major problems.
We need some "Sanitation Engineers" now in hospitals there, they already get paid like doctors in Italy!
i figure the bleeding heart's would give a speech...about this heart felt written article...i just ain't got the heart to say it...and the beat goes on...
to bad that italian ship captain didn't have more heart!!
seems he might need at least 3 hearts to make up for his cowardice!!!!!
God simply wanted to insure his spouse got TWICE the love. Hes two times as loving. Doubly nice. When it comes to heart warming stories this guys a micro wave. ; ] I guess in the end though legally he is able to give his heartS to two women and be kosher. ; ] I recall the movie ninja assassin. Where the girl had a "special heart" because it was on the opposite side of her chest. This guy could simply be stabbed in one and be good ta go. So when his mistress meets his wife he can blame it on the dueling duality of the two great muscles that make him human. ; ]
Cheers
Beat me to it... the doctor is here.... run.
No kidding. Get within half a mile of that guy and your life expectancy parallels that of a typical Ood.
Hey, if he looks like David Tennant or Matt Smith, I'm okay with that. Very okay...
I see this story has attracted Doctor Who fanatics like Daleks to an unprotected planet.
how very ood
Plenty of heart!
And the story had a happy ending too...what more can you ask for?
They should have just let him regenerate!
Ya gotta have heart (da da da dum, da da da dum)
2 more hearts than Mitt Romney has. Hahahahahahaha.
Hold on hear; just one gall-darned minute, now, there, then, -
I thought marriage was between one woman and one man ?
Oh well, this was Italy though wasn't it.
No problem. Its a hetero-ventricle marriage.
Just Americas luck. If he had two brains he could lend one to Obama.
Way to bring politics into this lovely non-political story.
Issac-2952942, The brainless ones were "W" Bush and the neo-CONS. What Obama did so far like turn the economy around ana get Bin Laden and Quadafi, etc, it is like Obama has TWO BRAINS!!!!!!!!
I wouldn't mind having a second organ of sorts...could be on one of those PPV channels :-)
If you don't mind, we'll consider allowing you to have a second kidney.
they did this one on south park, only more interesting. the multi assed monkey.
So that's where Francesco Schettino's heart was!
Awwww... for a moment I thought he naturally had two hearts.
When I was reading these funny comments about this guy having 2 hearts my ass had a royal flush. Hee-hee. Rim shot!
He aleady had a Pacemaker in place but these Doctors put him on heart rythm medication? Why didn't they check his Pacemaker to start with. These Medicines to regulate Heart rythm can be dangerous to people who just had had a heart attack like this patient had. The Meds lower the heart rate and blood presure and often as in this case cause the heart to stop. My friend call my office for a free consultation regarding your law suit.
the patient didn't have a heart attack. the headline is innaccurate. a heart attack is when a coronary artery becomes blocked and a portion of the heart muscle dies. this patient had cardiac arrest, which is when the upper and lower chambers of the heart become out of sync, causing stoppage, or when the heart rate becomes so fast or slow that it ceases to beat and/or quivers rather than contracting. there are antiarhythmics which can be given with a pacemaker- especially since the article stated that the patients pacer was defective. there are antiarhythmics for both speeding up or slowing down or regulating heart rhythms; there are pacers to increase the heart rate, regulate/supplement an irregular rhythm, or to shock a heart beating too fast, to reset its pace to a slower speed. the article details none of these nor specifies precisely what was in use.
this article is a 'news event' article. it isn't a medical article and it doesn't give nearly enough info to make any diagnoses or draw any conclusions. this is how you get frivolous lawsuits- because lawyers and people don't understand the physiology, aren't aware of the entirety of the circumstances, but are just sure that they are being swindled. reading a news article doesn't mean that you actually know a thing about what went down
What rules does the Death Note have on people with 2 hearts?
I went out walking the other day
Seen a little girl crying along the way
She'd been hurt so bad said she'd never love again
Someday your crying girl will end
And you'll find once again
CHORUS
Two hearts are better than one
Two hearts girl get the job done
Two hearts are better than one. - Bruce Springsteen
springsteen is a dork
Yes, Springsteen sucks.
They say he has two wifes, one for each heart. He tried to select just one, but his hearts were not in it.
His heart WILL go on!....
WOW!!!! That @!$%# cray.
Do tribbles screech when they are around him?
Amazing what medicine is able to accomplish today.. This man is alive today because of it..
No man... two hearts!!! TIME LORD!!! Does the Doctor know? It's not Dr Yana. That's for certain.
That's a heart-warming story.
So, he says I love you from the bottom of my hearts? :)
Pump it up, pump it up ... you gotta have heart .... lots and lots and lots of heart .... have a heart, will ya? (OK, I'll have two, thank you!) ... shall I go on?
After the surgery he had a heart to heart talk with himself.
Yo, Tin man! I know where you can get a heart.