The Carmat company, which is developing a total artificial heart intended for patients suffering from terminal biventricular heart failure, has just announced the first implantation of its artificial heart on a woman: a 57-year-old patient from Kentucky (United States) who suffers from severe biventricular heart failure. The surgery lasted 8 hours.
Show that the heart fits in a smaller rib cage
“Size limitations may make it more difficult to implant artificial hearts in women, but the Aeson artificial heart is compact enough to fit in the smaller chest cavities found more frequently in women, resulting in hope for a wider variety of patients waiting for a transplant, “said Prof. Mark Slaughter, thoracic surgeon at UofL Health University Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky, who performed the implant.
“The chest can be smaller, the rib cage a little lower” in patients, recognized Stéphane Piat, CEO of Carmat, in the program “La France Bouge” on Europe 1 “And the fear, during a transplant, is always not being able to close the thorax.” With this world first, the Carmat company was able “to demonstrate by A + B that the size of the Carmat heart is not a problem for compatibility at the anatomical level”.
6 successful locations in Europe this summer
On September 15, on the occasion of the publication of its half-year results, Carmat announced that it had succeeded in total 6 commercial establishments of its artificial heartl Aeson this summer, including 4 in Germany and 2 in Italy. These installations are the first sales made by the company since its creation in 2008. They were made possible thanks to the CE certification received on December 22, 2020. This certification allows the company to market its total artificial heart system in all areas. countries that recognize it. The CE mark has been granted to the Carmat artificial heart system as a “bridge to transplantation” (ie in patients waiting for a transplant to give them more time before receiving the transplant) in patients with end-stage biventricular heart failure who cannot benefit from maximum medical therapy or a left ventricular assist device and who are likely to have a heart transplant within 180 days of implantation.
In the United States, the Aeson total artificial heart is being tested as part of a feasibility study approved by the Food and Drug Administration. The first heart was implanted in a male patient in July at Duke University Medical Center. The next two implantations (including the one on the female patient) were performed at UofL Health University Hospital in Louisville in August and September.
Source:
First-in-world heart implant: Woman receives novel type of artificial heart at UofL Health – Jewish Hospital, University of Louisville, September 2021
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