An Australian man has become a medical marvel thanks to his groundbreaking artificial heart. The man’s doctors reported this week that he was the first person in the world to be discharged from the hospital with an implant developed to completely replace the heart’s functioning.
Doctors at St Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney performed the experimental procedure last November, installing the BiVACOR Total Artificial Heart into a man suffering from severe heart failure. Though the man wasn’t the first human to receive the technology, he was the first to live with it long enough to be released from the hospital—over 100 days. The implant acted as a bridge to a typical heart transplant, which the man obtained earlier this March.
There are existing implants today that can perform some of an ailing heart’s functions, at least for a time. But the BiVACOR heart—invented by native Australian and biomedical engineer Daniel Timms—is designed to fully take over the heart’s many critical functions. It’s intended for people with end-stage heart failure, and is outfitted with an external rechargeable battery that connects to the heart through a wire. The battery only lasts for four hours at a time, though the developers are hoping that future iterations can upgrade to a more convenient wireless charger.
The implant has 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 U.S., only had the implant for a brief period before they received heart transplants, short enough that they were never discharged from their hospital stay. So the man’s discharge and his 100-plus days of survival with the implant are both record-breaking achievements. He is now recovering well from his heart transplant performed earlier this month, according to his doctors.
“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,” Paul Jansz, a cardiothoracic and transplant surgeon at St Vincent’s, told The Guardian.
Though the BiVACOR heart is currently being tested as a treatment to extend the survival of patients until they can get a donor heart, Timms and his colleagues ultimately hope that the device can become a long-lasting replacement for the heart and a suitable alternative to heart transplantation. It’s a goal that won’t be easy to reach, given that patients live for a median 12 to 13 years after getting a donated heart. But for now, the early progress is certainly encouraging. More patients are expected to receive their own implants this year through a program led by researchers at Monash University in Australia.
“The BiVACOR Total Artificial Heart ushers in a whole new ball game for heart transplants, both in Australia and internationally,” Chris Hayward, a cardiologist at St Vincent’s who monitored the man’s health, told The Guardian. “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.”
Artificial implants like the BiVACOR heart aren’t the only emerging technology that could one day support or supplant the limited supply of donor organs. Elsewhere, scientists are working on developing genetically modified pig organs that can be safely tolerated by the human body.
