A patient with an artificial heart breaks the survival record

Australian man has become a medical miracle thanks to his innovative artificial heart. The doctors of the man reported This week he was the first person in the world to be discharged from the hospital with an implant developed to completely replace the functioning of the heart.

Doctors at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney performed the experimental procedure last November, installing Bivacor a common artificial heart in a person suffering from severe heart failure. Although the man was not the first person to receive the technology, he was the first to live with her long enough to be released from the hospital – over 100 days. The implant acted as a bridge to a typical cardiac transplantation that the man received earlier this March.

Today, there are existing implants that can perform some of the functions of sick hearts, at least for a while. But the heart of Bivacor – inventory from the native Australian and biomedical engineer Daniel Tims – is intended to absorb the very critical functions of the heart. It is intended for people with end -stage heart failure and is equipped with an external rechargeable battery that connects to the heart through the wire. The battery lasts only four hours at a time, although developers hope that future iterations can upgrade to a more comfortable wireless charger.

The implant has reached early clinical trials, with the sixth and most elaborate patient being a man of his 40s from New South Wales. The previous five patients, all in the United States, had the implant only for a short period before receiving cardiac transplants short enough that they had never been discharged from their hospital stay. So the response of the person and his 100 plus days of survival with the implant are both record achievements. He is now recovering well from his cardiac transplantation, done earlier this month, according to his doctors.

“We have been working for this moment for years and we are extremely proud that we are the first team in Australia to perform this procedure,” Paul Jans, a cardiocriocal and transplant surgeon in St. Vincent, at St. Vincent, to say The guardian.

Although at the moment the heart of Bivacor is being tested as a treatment to prolong patient survival until they can get a donor heart, TIMS and his colleagues ultimately hope that the device can become a long -lasting heart replacement and an appropriate alternative to heart transplantation. This is a goal that will not be easy to achieve, considering that patients Lively For an average 12 to 13 years after receiving a donated heart. But so far, early progress is certainly encouraging. More patients are expected to receive their own implants this year via a A program led by researchers at the University of Monash in Australia.

“The common artificial heart of Bivacor is introducing into a whole new game for a ball of heart transplantation, both in Australia and internationally,” says Chris Hayward, a cardiologist at St. Vincent, which monitors the health of the man in front of The Guardian. “Within the next decade, we will see the artificial heart become an alternative for patients who are not able to wait for the donor’s heart or when the donor’s heart is simply not available.”

Artificial implants such as Bivacor Heart are not the only emerging technology that one day could support or displace the limited supply of donor authorities. Elsewhere, scientists work on development genetically modified pork organs This can be safely tolerated by the human body.