Australian becomes first in world discharged with durable artificial heart implant

Australian Community Media

An Australian patient has become the first in the world to be discharged from a hospital with a BiVACOR Total Artificial heart. Video by AAP and St Vincent’s Hospital

Transcript

00:00I mean, it's an artificial heart that completely replaces the heart, so both sides of the heart,

00:05and it pumps blood to both the lungs and to the body.

00:08It does that with this rapidly spinning disk that's located within this device.

00:14That rapidly spinning disk is levitated by electromagnetic fields,

00:18and that means that there's no mechanical action,

00:20and therefore the device can operate for a very long time,

00:24and it needs to be durable as an artificial heart.

00:26And it's very different from traditional artificial hearts,

00:28which have a fill-to-empty mechanism like a bladder that will pump the blood forward

00:33and form mechanical valves.

00:34Here, there's no valves at all, just one spinning disk that won't wear out.

00:39So there's a wire that will come out of the skin and go to a control box

00:42that the user will change batteries out every couple of hours,

00:46and that's all they do.

00:47They simply keep the device powered, and the device does the rest.

00:50Yeah, it weighs about 650 grams, or a pound and a half,

00:53and it's similar to the male heart.

00:55It's around about that kind of weight.

00:57It looks heavy because it's metal and it's compact,

00:59but it fits inside the chest nicely and stays in place.

01:02And then we ask every single patient,

01:03can you feel this?

01:04And they're like, feel what?

01:05It feels fine.

01:06And they can't hear it at all unless they get a stethoscope,

01:09and they can hear it.

01:10It's kind of like a turbine engine inside their heart, inside their chest.

01:15So, yeah, they've been very happy with the function of the device.

01:23For more information, visit www.FEMA.gov

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