( Mark Heiner of Culver City reads books...)Heart-Assist Device Gives Culver City Man a Good Quality of Life,Health

Mark Heiner of Culver City reads books, paints artistically, takes walks and does laundry activities that would be considered routine except for the fact that a four-pound disk implanted in his abdominal cavity is keeping his blood flowing.

The procedure to implant the Thoratec HeartMate XVE was performed in early March by a team led by cardiothoracic surgeon Sinan A. Simsir, M.D., surgical director of the Heart Transplant and Ventricular Assist Device Program at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

Heiners implantation of the XVE may be the first in Los Angeles County. The device was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2002 for use in destination therapy, permanent support for end-stage heart failure patients who are not eligible for heart transplantation.

Heiner, 57, a former prop man in the entertainment industry, has a history of cardiomyopathy, in which the heart becomes enlarged and less efficient. He also was diagnosed in 1999 with non-Hodgkins lymphoma, cancer of the lymph nodes. When he had a lymphoma relapse in 2005, a course of chemotherapy further damaged his heart.

The combination of ailments left Heiner in a medical Catch-22. His heart was so weak he needed a transplant, but guidelines of the International Society of Heart & Lung Transplantation suggest a patient be tumor-free for five years before being subjected to the immunosuppression that reduces the risk of organ rejection.

I was very sick. I couldnt even be out of bed for very long. I was in intensive care about nine months ago and I got through that but my heart just never came back, Heiner said. I was fatigued, couldnt breathe and couldnt concentrate. I just wasnt getting enough blood throughout my body. I was very close to death.

A left ventricular assist device (LVAD), the HeartMate XVE assumes the work of the hearts left ventricle, the main pumping chamber of the heart. The mechanical device can pump u
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