Briton Receives Electric Heart

A British-American team has implanted a permanent artificial electric heart into a 64-year-old heart patient who had been given six months to live.

In the United States, where the device was designed and made, the artificial heart is permitted for use only temporarily while a patient is waiting for a heart transplant.

Abel Goodman, a retired London film producer, received the battery-driven device in a three-hour operation Oct. 23 at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford.

The British cardiac team has been working with the Texas Heart Institute and Dr. Robert Jarvik, who helped develop artificial heart technology.