Jarvik‑7

[jahr-vik-sev-uhn]

Medicine/Medical, Trademark.

1. a four-valved artificial heart for implantation in the human body, replacing the natural heart's ventricles and attaching to its atria: air is pumped into the ventricles from an external air compressor through two connecting hoses that enter the body through the abdominal wall.

Example Sentences

Mr. Jones pledged that Humana would fund 100 implantations of the Jarvik 7 artificial heart.

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The Jarvik 7, as it was called, comprised two plastic pumps powered by compressed air, which required the patient to be hooked up at all times to a rolling console the size and weight of a refrigerator.

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Later recipients fared somewhat better with the Jarvik 7.

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The second successful U.S. surgery of an artificial heart, the Jarvik 7, was implanted in Louisville in the mid-1980s.

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Last month a team of researchers from Temple University Hospital in Philadelphia implanted the Jarvik 7 in a woman who had been declared "brain dead."

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