The Australian company Bivacor has achieved a significant milestone in its developments as a patient successfully lived with a mechanical heart for over 100 days before undergoing a successful transplantation of a donor organ. The identity of the man, who required the mechanical heart due to a serious illness, has not been disclosed.
The innovative blood circulation system, known as the Total Artificial Heart (TAH), developed by Bivacor features a design based on an electromechanical pump with a single moving part – a rotor that is maintained in position using magnetic levitation. A key advantage of the device is its ability to simultaneously pump blood to both the body and the lungs.
This new system represents a departure from traditional models, which contained many moving components that would gradually wear out through contact. In the updated design, the rotor resembles a blade wheel, almost floating in the air without touching other parts. Bivacor has even created a three-dimensional animated model demonstrating the operation of the mechanism, which can be viewed here.
The implant is powered by an external system, with a controller and batteries connected to the device via a percutaneous cable passing through a small incision in the patient’s body.
Last year, Bivacor conducted initial tests in the United States where five patients received the TAH as a temporary measure while awaiting a donor heart. All participants in the experiment underwent successful transplantation surgeries and were discharged from the hospital. Two of them received a donor heart 27 days and 8 days after the TAH installation.
The six-hour operation on the Australian patient culminated in a successful recovery, allowing him to leave the clinic after an extended period of living with the mechanical heart until a donor heart became available.
With the scarcity of donor organs for transplantation, Bivacor is working to enhance their innovation to potentially function for up to a decade, similar to a natural heart. However, medical experts caution that despite promising results, the technology is still undergoing clinical testing. Only 15 additional TAH installations are approved in the United States, and further research is needed before the technology can be widely used for temporary or permanent support for