‘Complete game changer’: Man leaves Sydney hospital with artificial heart in world first
https://www.theage.com.au/national/complete-game-changer-man-leaves-sydney-hospital-with-artificial-heart-in-world-first-20250311-p5lill.html
‘Complete game changer’: Man leaves Sydney hospital with artificial heart in world first
https://www.theage.com.au/national/complete-game-changer-man-leaves-sydney-hospital-with-artificial-heart-in-world-first-20250311-p5lill.html
6 Comments
>From the moment I understood the weakness of my flesh, it disgusted me. I craved the strength and certainty of steel. I aspired to the purity of the blessed machine. Your kind cling to your flesh as if it will not decay and fail you. One day the crude biomass that you called a temple will wither and you’ll beg my kind to save you. But I am already saved. For the machine is immortal. Even in death i serve the Omnissiah.
I’m not saying I’m interested in being an early adopter (necessity aside), but I have several annoying squishy bits that I wouldn’t mind swapping out as they go bad.
| It was the first time the BiVacor total artificial heart implant, first devised by Queenslander Daniel Timms more than 20 years ago, has been implanted in a patient in Australia. Four patients have received the implant in the United States since July, but this was the first time anyone has left the hospital with the device in place.
| “This is a complete game changer,” said Dr Paul Jansz, the cardiothoracic surgeon who installed the implant in a six-hour surgery. “It’s a device that solves a lot of the problems that we have with mechanical circulatory support.”
An Australian patient has become the first in the world to leave hospital with a levitating titanium heart, in a major step towards halving deaths from cardiac failure and establishing a world-leading medical manufacturing industry on Australian soil.
The ambitious procedure, performed in November, was announced as an “unmitigated clinical success” on Wednesday, after the man in his 40s, who has chosen not to be identified, survived long enough with the device to receive a traditional heart transplant earlier this month.
While I think it’s great to hear about advancements in medical science, the title is slightly misleading. It’s not the first artificial heart to perform to that level nor for that duration of time, it’s simply the first unit of their design (BiVACOR) to function for that long.
Also please avoid paywalled sources, especially when there are readily available alternatives out there.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/mar/12/australian-man-survives-100-days-with-artificial-heart-in-world-first-success
It’s also still just a temporary solution while awaiting a heart transplant, not a truly permanent replacement for an organic heart.
It’s encouraging though that we are moving closer and closer to fully functional synthetic heart replacements considering how common cardio vascular disease is and the significant lack of supply of hearts.
Friendly reminder to everyone to take a moment to consider signing up as an organ donor.
Don’t fall behind or your monthly payments or they’ll have to repo that heart.
Thank you, great share. Was hoping for a little bit more in layman’s terms about the actual functioning of the levitating titanium heart – as in how it creates and maintains blood flow pressure.
Is it levitating inside a vacuum inner chamber via a magnetic field?