Artificial-heart patient suffers stroke

The first artifical heart recipient, Robert Tools, had been doing well since his July surgery, but now doctors say his health is deteriorating.

LOUISVILLE, Kentucky (CNN) -- The first patient in the world to receive a self-contained artificial heart has suffered a stroke, doctors said Wednesday.

"There's no question about it. This has been confirmed on a CAT scan," Dr. Laman Gray, one of two surgeons who did the implant, said at a news conference.

Robert Tools, 59, received the artificial heart July 2 and had been doing well, but his health began to deteriorate Sunday, and he experienced weakness in his right arm and leg, Gray said.

Tools was placed back on a ventilator Tuesday, so he cannot speak, but he has opened his eyes and looked at his family, and he has been able to move his right leg a little bit, doctors said.

Tools had shown great progress since an AbioCor artificial heart was implanted in his chest, taking 20 excursions away from the hospital during his recovery. He even had lunch with the mayor of Louisville last week.

Doctors speculated the stroke was brought on by a blood clot, but they do not know where the clot originated.

Dr. Robert Dowling, the other surgeon who performed the implant, explained that Tools' medical team had had difficulty treating him with blood thinners, which are important therapy for patients with artificial heart valves. Dowling said Tools often experienced bleeding in the stomach when the anti-clotting drugs were administered.

Gray emphasized that the artificial heart is continuing to work as expected.

The doctors said they could not predict how much or when Tools might recover from the stroke.

"Certainly we are very disappointed," Gray said. "Mr. Tools had become a very good friend. We considered him more of a friend than a patient and we're sorry to see he's had a problem."

He said Tools' family remains optimistic about his prospects for recovery.

Five patients, including Tools, have the implants.

On September 13, the same Louisville team implanted the AbioCor into a second patient, Tom Christerson, 70, who is doing OK, Dowling said Tuesday. The day before, Dowling was in Anaheim, California, where he spoke highly of the AbioCor before the annual meeting of the American Heart Association.

Since Christerson is older than Tools, it will take him longer to recover, Dowling said.

Christerson experienced a setback because he was having an adverse reaction to one of his medications causing a fever. Now that he's off that medication the problem is gone.

On September 27, Dr. O. H. Frazier performed the third implant on an unidentified man at Texas Heart Institute in Houston, Texas. The patient is also doing well and reportedly walking around.

On October 17, doctors at the University of California-Los Angeles implanted an AbioCor into a fourth patient, who is doing well, Dowling said.

On November 5, a fifth patient received the device at Hahnemann University Hospital in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

The patient in Philadelphia -- who, like the UCLA patient, remains unidentified -- is still recovering from the implant since it has only been a week, Dowling said.

The makers of the AbioCor, AbioMed, based in Danvers, Massachusetts, received approval in January to implant the device into five patients. Now it plans to seek approval from the Food and Drug Administration to implant the device into another 10 patients.