It is a world’s first: an artificial heart designed to stay in the body for five years.
Similar devices have been used for decades as a short-term measure, but recipients will be able to keep this one for longer as they await donors.
French heart transplant specialist Alain Carpentier presents a prototype of the world’s first fully implantable artificial heart. Photo: AP
An artificial heart that can give patients up to five years of extra life has been successfully implanted for the first time.
The heart, powered by watch-style batteries that can be worn externally, was put into a patient at Paris’s Georges Pompidou Hospital.
It uses a range of “biomaterials”, including bovine tissue, to reduce the likelihood of the body rejecting it.
Unlike previous artificial hearts, created mainly for temporary use, the design by the French Carmat biomedical firm is intended to replace a real heart for as many as five years.
French medics said the unnamed male patient who received the device was awake and responding well after an operation on Wednesday. Marcello Conviti, the chief executive of Carmat, said: “We are delighted with this first implant, although it is premature to draw conclusions given that a single implant has been performed and that we are in the early post-operative phase.”
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