Although experts still consider artificial hearts risky, recent research found that artificial hearts might prove helpful to patients with heart failure while they await heart transplants.
Patients with severe heart failure — specifically those dealing with end-stage cardiomyopathy — may not live long enough to receive a heart transplant from an organ donor, but an artificial heart can help prolong life until a transplant becomes available.
Researchers at Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute looked at 22 patients who received total artificial hearts. During the study, their findings showed that four patients received heart transplants successfully, 13 more were still waiting for transplants and five of the patients died during the study period. None of the patients experienced infections associated with the artificial heart.
According to one of the cardiologists involved in the study, Swaminatha V. Gurudevan, M.D., researchers expected higher mortality rates and were pleased — and somewhat surprised — at how well the patients did after the artificial heart transplants. The deaths that occurred during the study were mainly among the patients who were sickest before the artificial heart transplantation.
Total artificial hearts are used in patients dealing with end-stage heart failure when the function of the heart becomes so poor that an artificial heart is the only option left while awaiting a heart transplant. Surgeons attach the artificial heart to the upper heart chambers of the patient's heart, using mechanical valves to ensure blood flows between the heart's chambers.
Despite the development of multiple artificial hearts since the 1950s, currently the FDA only approves one type of artificial heart. All of the patients involved in this study were provided with the FDA-approved Syncardia total artificial heart.
While awaiting heart transplantation, most patients with severe heart failure are required to spend their waiting time in a hospital until a heart transplant became available. The design of the artificial heart, which features a power source that may be carried in a backpack, makes it possible for patients to leave the hospital to await heart transplantation in the comfort of their own home.
Since patients are able to go on with most of their regularly activities, it allows them to keep up their strength, so they have a better chance of a positive outcome when they undergo heart transplantation. Artificial hearts not only help keep patients alive while they await a heart transplant, but the artificial hearts also help to increase the patient's quality of life as they wait.
Although using total artificial hearts is still rare, this new transplant research may change that. The implantation of an artificial heart requires a complex, long surgery, and few healthcare facilities have the capability to undertake these surgical procedures. Certain risks come along with artificial hearts, including the possibility of device malfunctions, blood clots, infections and bleeding.
However, this study shows that artificial hearts may offer more good than bad for patients awaiting transplantation. In fact, Gurudevan even recommends that researchers conduct further research that looks as total artificial hearts as a potential permanent solution for patients, which would eliminate the need for patients to wait for a heart transplant.
