A man in Australia who received a titanium heart has achieved a double world-first, after becoming the only person to survive with the artificial heart for more than 100 days, and to be discharged from hospital with the implant still in place.
The patient, who was in his 40s, had been experiencing severe heart failure, per ABC News. This is a condition in which the heart is unable to pump enough blood to meet the body’s needs, and in this kind of severe case, one route of treatment is a heart transplant.
Donor hearts, however, are hard to come by. In the US, for example, there are approximately 6.7 million people over the age of 20 living with heart failure, but only 4,545 people received a heart transplant in 2023.
That’s where total artificial hearts come in, such as the titanium heart designed by medical device company BiVACOR. Implanted into a human for the first time back in July 2024, the heart works using a magnetically suspended rotor that pushes the blood through the implant and throughout the body.
The Australian patient received a BiVACOR titanium heart during a procedure carried out at St Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney last November, the first one conducted in the country.
“There were definitely nerves, especially when Daniel [Timms, who invented BiVACOR] flicked the switch and turned it [the artificial heart] on,” Dr Paul Jansz, the surgeon who performed the six-hour operation, told ABC News.
But the nerves were worth it – the surgery was a success, and in more ways than one. The patient remained in hospital until early February 2025, at which point he became the first person in the world to be discharged with one of the titanium hearts.
For the patients who have received it so far, the BiVACOR heart has only been intended to be a stopgap until a suitable donor heart becomes available. That day came earlier this month for the Australian man; according to a statement from St Vincent’s, the donor heart transplant was carried out successfully, and the patient is now “recovering well”.
However, the hope is that one day, people will be able to live with the BiVACOR heart permanently, removing the need for human heart replacements. This latest patient lived with the total artificial heart for over 100 days, the longest period out of anyone who’s received it, which marks an important step in one day achieving the goal of permanent total artificial hearts.
