Researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center are testing a briefcase-size power and monitoring device that allows patients with a temporary artificial heart to wait at home for a heart transplant.
As it is now, patients with an artificial heart implant waiting for a donor heart must remain in the hospital tethered to a large console that powers and monitors the artificial heart. A shortage of organs for transplant means the wait for a donor heart can last for months to more than a year.
SynCardia Systems Inc., maker of the Total Artificial Heart, developed the smaller device, called the Freedom, as an option to its larger, 418-pound console driver, called Big Blue.
The new, portable device weighs about 14 pounds and can be worn in a backpack or shoulder bag -- so patients have more freedom of movement.
With the smaller one, "we will be able to discharge stable patients away from the hospital to await their transplant," said Dr. Michael Hess, director of the VCU Pauley Heart Center.
VCU is leading a national clinical trial using the portable device. The trial hopes to enroll a total of 60 patients at as many as 30 medical centers, officials said.
VCU did its first artificial heart implant surgery in 2006 and has now performed 42. According to VCU officials, 85 percent of those patients survived until they got a transplant, and 90 percent were alive a year after the heart transplant.
The Total Artificial Heart replaces patients' heart ventricles and valves. Tubes extend from the device through the chest wall and attach to the driver -- which monitors, powers and operates the implant, delivering pulses of pneumatic pressure to it.
A report from Francis Chukwu
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