A mechanical heart designed in Australia is set for human trials later this year giving hope to patients with congenital heart disease like Julie Ovens, who needs a transplant in the future.
Ovens was in fear that her heart might one day give up so this "latest pioneering technology" to replace damaged hearts "is music to her ears," 9News reported.
The 65-year-old patient expressed excitement if she could be a beneficiary because, from a young age, she used to receive pioneering surgeries.
The outlet noted that Ovens was emotional when she spoke about the toll of living with heart failure. Describing her experience as a congenital heart disease patient saying she often asks her husband, "what it must be like to have a healthy heart."
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A picture taken during a press briefing in Paris on February 14, 2017 shows an artificial heart made by the biomedical company Carmat.
Mechanical Heart
Sydney experts are currently testing the mechanical heart. According to Professor Chris Hayward from Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute, this latest technology is a "total heart replacement."
Professor Hayward said total heart replacement meant taking the heart out and replacing it with a pump piece.
The pump piece is put through its phases using a machine that mimics the body's cardiovascular system inside its titanium casing. In this mechanical heart, the rotary is the only part moving to make it less likely to fail.
Initially, this artificial heart will be deployed as a breathing device and according to Hayward, what they really want to have is "a pump that is forgettable."
A recent $10-million grant from the federal government has allowed this project to move forward with human trials, expected to start this year, as earlier mentioned.
Artificial Heart
The Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute describes an artificial heart as a device that replaces "both ventricles and all four heart valves," and works like the original heart.
It is implanted in the body and replaces the native heart. The artificial heart is also connected to an external power source like portable batteries or an external wall power source using an electrical cable called "driveline."
Essentially, an artificial heart helps restore normal blood flow to the other organs inside the body.
The research institute explained that having both failed ventricles is less common in "advanced end-stage heart failure" with roughly 85 to 90 percent of patients only having left ventricle fail.
Those patients qualified for a tinier and invasive pump called the left ventricular assist device (LVAD).
Left Ventricular Assist Device
A Cleveland Clinic report describes an LVAD as a mechanical pump implanted in people suffering from heart failure. It helps the heart's bottom-left chamber or left ventricle pump blood out of the ventricle going to the aorta and the rest of the body.
This mechanical pump does not replace the heart. Rather, it receives blood from the left ventricle, delivering it to the aorta and helps the left ventricle pump blood. The LVAD is inserted during open-heart surgery.
Mechanical pumps can keep a patient alive for almost six years. A study shows that roughly 80 to 85 percent of patients are alive 12 months from having an LVAD implanted, whereas, up to three quarters stay alive for two years. This time frame may just be an ideal waiting time before a heart transplant happens.
Related information about transplant after LVAD is shown on Emory Healthcare's YouTube video below:
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