Artificial heart transplant backed

MEDICAL watchdogs in France have given the go-ahead for a pioneering French-made artificial heart to be transplanted into a live patient.

The bioprosthetic heart developed by cardiac specialist Alain Carpentier and the company Carmat is the same size as a normal heart and uses both synthetic and biological material to simulate the organ’s work.

It contains two chambers with a tiny motorised pump and hydraulic fluid to force the chambers to open and contract and make blood flow. Tissue retrieved from a cow’s heart sac is used to line the blood-facing side of the unit to cut down on anti-coagulant and rejection medication.

Developed by Carmat with aeronautics company EADS, the heart has been approved by watchdog ANSM for implantation in patients. Four hospitals in Belgium, Poland, Slovenia and Saudi Arabia have already agreed to take part in the test.

The transplants will be on patients suffering from terminal heart failure and who are not suitable for a normal heart transplant.

Tests will be ruled a success if the patient gets an extra month of life – but the designers say the hearts should be capable of beating 100,000 times a day and 35 million times per year.

Dr Carpentier said the test was a real break with the past “because for the first time the purpose of this bioprosthetic heart is to last as long as possible without having to have a transplant.”