Australian Man Lives 100 Days With Artificial Titanium Heart In Successful Trial

[Image: Bivacor / X]

In a world-first, an Australian man has survived for 100 days with an artificial heart while waiting for a transplant donor.

The Australian researchers and doctors behind the operation announced on Wednesday that the implant had been an “unmitigated clinical success” after the man lived with the device for more than 100 days before receiving a donor heart transplant in early March.

The patient, a man in his 40s who volunteered, received the implant during surgery at St. Vincent’s Hospital Sydney last November. He is the first recipient of the total artificial heart in Australia, and the sixth in the world.

Surgeons are now hopeful that the Australian-designed implant could serve as a life-saving ‘bridge’ while patients wait for donor hearts.

“We’ve worked towards this moment for years and we’re enormously proud to have been the first team in Australia to carry out this procedure.”

Australian bioengineer Daniel Timms, who invented the BiVACOR total artificial heart following his father’s death from heart disease, said it was “exhilarating to see decades of work come to fruition.”

Dr Timms explained the rotary blood pump that can act as a complete replacement for a human heart, using magnetic levitation technology to replicate the natural blood flow of a healthy heart.

Still in the early stages of clinical study, the implant has been designed for patients with end-stage biventricular heart failure, which generally develops after other conditions – most commonly heart attack and coronary heart disease, but also other diseases such as diabetes – have damaged or weakened the heart so that it cannot effectively pump blood through the body effectively.

According to the Australian government, more than 23 million people around the world suffer from heart failure each year, but only 6,000 will receive a donor heart. This implant could potentially save millions of lives, keeping patients alive until a donor heart transplant becomes available.

“Within the next decade we will see the artificial heart becoming the alternative for patients who are unable to wait for a donor heart or when a donor heart is simply not available.”

Prof David Colquhoun from the University of Queensland and board member of the Heart Foundation, cautioned that the functioning period of the artificial heart was still significantly less than that of a donor heart, which is more than 10 years (or 3,000 days).

Colquhoun said for that reason it was still “a long way to go” before the artificial heart could be considered a replacement for a heart transplant.

But in the meantime, it may save thousands of lives.

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