World-First: Man Leaves Hospital With Life-Saving Titanium Heart

In early February, an Australian man in his 40s became the first person in the world to leave hospital with a virtually unbreakable heart made of metal.

'Beating' in his chest was a titanium pump about the size of a fist. For 105 days, the metal organ's levitating propeller pushed blood to the man's lungs and kept him alive as he went about his usual business.

On March 6, when a human donor heart became available, the man's titanium heart was swapped out for the real thing. Doctors say without the metal stop-gap, the patient's real heart would have failed before a donor became available.

With his real heart, the man could only walk 10 to 15 meters without experiencing shortness of breath.

Now, he's up and about doing things he hasn't been able to do for many years, says transplant cardiologist Chris Hayward, head of the surgical team at St. Vincent's Hospital in Sydney where the procedure was carried out.

Lead surgeon, Paul Jansz, told press in Australia the invention is a "complete game-changer", and the event gave him "goosebumps".

The radical, trailblazing achievement was nearly 25 years in the making. Last year, the first human implant of the titanium heart, owned by the medical device company BiVACOR, kept a 58-year-old man in the US alive for eight days before a donor heart became available.

Now, the first implant outside the US and the sixth attempt overall gives us a tantalizing glimpse at the invention's true, long-term potential.

"The BiVACOR Total Artificial Heart ushers in a whole new ball game for heart transplants, both in Australia and internationally," says Hayward.

"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."

Daniel Timms, a biomedical engineer from Australia, has been working on a mechanical heart that can replace a severely damaged one since his father's heart attack in 2001. As the son of a plumber, Timms started out on the floor of a hardware store, connecting pipes and valves to mimic the human circulatory system.

To see his invention save the life of a person in Australia with severe heart damage after numerous design iterations and animal studies is a full circle moment for Timm.

"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," says Timms.

"The entire BiVACOR team is deeply grateful to the patient and his family for placing their trust in our Total Artificial Heart. Their bravery will pave the way for countless more patients to receive this lifesaving technology."

No one knows how long BiVACOR's Total Artificial Heart can last inside the human body, but in the lab, the design has continued working for four years and counting. Less durable artificial hearts can last for years in some patients awaiting transplant.

Unlike these other versions, Timms and researchers at BiVACOR designed the titanium heart to be 'virtually unbreakable'. To resist wear and corrosion, the metal organ contains just one moving part: a magnetically levitating rotor, spinning between two chambers without touching any hard surface.

This means that friction cannot cause damage over time. Only the external battery, which exits through the abdomen, needs replacement.

Another perk of the titanium heart is its size. Unlike other artificial hearts made from flexing membranes and valves, the 650-gram titanium heart is compact and can fit comfortably inside the chest of a woman or even a child around 12 years of age.

Yet despite its size, researchers say it can sustain a fully grown man during exercise.

Each year, fewer than 6,000 heart transplants take place worldwide, and yet a donor organ is the only way to save the millions of people out there with severe cardiac damage at risk of imminent death.

In the past two decades, the US Food & Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the commercial sale of only one artificial heart to buy patients more time.

BiVACOR is not yet available for commercial sale, but if it keeps performing this well in clinical trials, it's surely only a matter of time.

Four more devices are available for implant in Australia this year via the Monash University Artificial Heart Frontiers Program.