Artificial Heart
An Australian man with heart failure has become the first person in the world to walk out of a hospital with a total artificial heart implant.
The Australian researchers and doctors behind the operation announced on Wednesday that the implant had been an âunmitigated clinical successâ after the man lived with the device for more than 100 days before receiving a donor heart transplant in early March.
The BiVACOR total artificial heart, invented by Queensland-born Dr Daniel Timms, is the worldâs first implantable rotary blood pump that can act as a complete replacement for a human heart, using magnetic levitation technology to replicate the natural blood flow of a healthy heart.
He emphasised however the numbers per population experiencing heart failure are far less because of the heart medications now available â the peak of death rate from heart disease was around 1967-68 with 47,000 Australians dying from heart disease out of a then population of 11 million, compared with 45,000 of 26 million Australians in 2022.
