One of the last persons to receive a Jarvik artifical heart before federal approval of the device was withdrawn died after surgery to replace the pump with a donor organ. He spent 87 days on the device. Carl E. Bryant, 43, of Louisville, died Wednesday, eight hours after the transplant operation, said doctors at Louisville's Jewish Hospital. ``We did everything we could for Carl Bryant,'' said Dr. Laman A. Gray Jr., who transplanted the heart. Physicians said the donor heart, which became available late Tuesday, met the criteria for transplantation. But the left ventricle, or main pumping chamber, failed to function once the heart was inside Bryant. The Jarvik 7-70 assist device was implanted Dec. 22 at Humana Hospital-Audubon by Dr. William DeVries, who pioneered use of the artificial heart. ``The transplant surgery offered Carl's only real chance for survival,'' DeVries said in a statement Wednesday. Bryant was the second-to-last person to receive a Jarvik pump in this country before the U.S. Food and Drug Administration withdrew its approval of the device Jan. 8, said Gary Cole, an executive vice president with Symbion Inc., the Arizona manufacturer of the pumps. The agency said its inspections uncovered ``serious deficiencies'' in the way Symbion was carrying out studies with the device. In February, the FDA said it would allow use of the device as a last resort, but only when all other available treatments had failed and when no other life-saving device could be used. The device was last implanted in the United States in Columbus, Ohio, on Dec. 31, Cole said Thursday. He said two Jarvik pumps have been implanted in other countries since the FDA withdrawal. Cole said 159 Jarviks have been implanted as bridges to transplants since 1985. He said the longest-surviving patient to use the Jarvik while awaiting a donor organ was a French woman. She lived 603 days on the device. Dr. Barney Clark, the first person implanted with a Jarvik heart, died in 1983 after 112 days on the device. He received a Jarvik-7, which was supposed to be a premanent replacement for his heart. Bryant had a massive heart attack in July and underwent cardiac catheterization and angioplastic surgery in his left coronary artery. His wife, Cynthia, took him to the hospital Dec. 16 after he complained of chest pains. Three hours before he was to undergo triple bypass surgery, Bryant suffered a second massive heart attack. DeVries implanted the Jarvik device during a six-hour procedure. ``I have no qualms about Carl being on the assist device at all,'' Cynthia Bryant said. ``It worked wonderfully and may further research to help someone else. And we had three good months together that we would not have had otherwise.''
