Queensland's Dr Daniel Timms and his lifesaving invention.
Queensland's Dr Daniel Timms and his lifesaving invention.
An Australian man has become the first person in the world to leave hospital with a totally artificial implanted heart.
The Australian researchers and doctors behind the heart surgery on Wednesday that the implant had been an “unmitigated clinical success” after the patient in his 40s lived with the device for more than 100 days before receiving a donor heart transplant in earlier this month.
The BiVACOR Total Artificial Heart, invented by Queensland-born Dr Daniel Timms, is the world’s first implantable rotary blood pump that can act as a complete replacement for a human heart.
Using magnetic levitation technology, it is able to replicate the natural blood flow of a healthy heart.
St Vincent’s Hospital Sydney cardiologist, Professor Chris Hayward, said the BiVACOR Total Artificial Heart would transform heart failure treatment internationally.
“The BiVACOR Total Artificial Heart ushers in a whole new ball game for heart transplants, both in Australia and internationally,” Hayward said.
“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.”
The world’s first BiVACOR implant occurred on July 9 last year at the Texas Medical Center.
Since that operation, four more implants have taken place in the US, while the successful Australian implant is the first to take place outside America and – at 105 days – the longest period in the world for a patient between obtaining their implant and receiving a donor heart transplant.
With the device implanted, the man left hospital in February in an Uber.
Timms said the man could not feel the heart inside his chest, and was able to walk down the street and go shopping in the month before he received his donated heart.
“Being able to bring Australia along this journey and be part of the first clinical trials is immensely important to me and something that I set out to do from the very beginning,” Timms said.
“It is incredibly rewarding to see our device deliver extended support to the first Australian patient,” he added.
The implant is the first in a series of procedures planned in Australia as part of the Monash University-led Artificial Heart Frontiers Program, which is developing key devices to treat the most common forms of heart failure.