An Australian man has become a medical marvel thanks to his brand new artificial heart. The man’s doctors Reported This week that he was the first person in the world to be relieved from the hospital with an implant developed to completely replace the functioning of the heart.
Doctors at St Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney have completed the experimental procedure last November, installing the Bivacor Total Artificial Heart into a man suffering severe heart failure. Although the man was not the first man to receive the technology, he was the first to live with it long enough to be released from the hospital – for 100 days. The implant acted as a bridge to a typical heart transplant, which the man obtained earlier in March.
There are existing implants today that can perform some sick heart functions, at least over time. But the Bivacia Heart – invented by a native Australian and biomedical engineer Daniel Timms – is designed to fully take over the many critical functions of the heart. It is intended for people with a final stage of heart failure, and is equipped with an external rechargeable battery that connects to the heart by wire. The battery lasts only four hours at a time, although developers hope that future iterations can upgrade to a more convenient wireless charger.
The implant reached early clinical trials, with the sixth and most current patient being a man in his 40s from New South Wales. The previous five patients, all in the United States, only had the implant for a short period before they received heart transplants, briefly enough that they were never unloaded from their hospital stay. So the unloading of the man and his 100-plus days of survival with the implant are both record achievements. He is now recovering well from his heart transplantation made earlier this month, according to his doctors.
“We have worked to this moment for years and we are extremely proud to be the first team in Australia to implement this procedure,” Paul Jansz, a cardiacotic and transplant surgeon at St Vincent’s, told The guard.
Although the Bivacor Heart is currently being tried as a treatment to extend the survival of patients until they can get a gift heart, Timms and its colleagues ultimately hope that the device can become a long-term replacement for the heart and an appropriate alternative to heart transplantation. It is a target that will not be easily accessible, considering that patients Live for an average of 12 to 13 years after receiving a given heart. But nowadays early progress is certainly encouraged. More patients expect to receive their own implants this year by Program led by researchers at Monash University in Australia.
“Bivacor’s entire artificial heart in a completely new ball game for heart transplants, both in Australia and internationally,” Chris Hayward, Cardiologist of St Vincent’s Who Monitored The Man’s Health, told The Guardian. “In the next decade we will see the artificial heart become the alternative for patients who are unable to wait for a gift heart or when a donating heart is simply not available.”
Artificial implants like the Bivacor corch are not the only emerging technology that could one day support or replace the limited supply of donation organs. Elsewhere, scientists work to develop genetically modified pork organs This can be safely tolerated by the human body.
