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Columbus, Ohio.-June 8, 2006 - Ohio
State University Medical Center has joined a handful of institutions worldwide
certified to implant a federally approved temporary artificial heart in patients
awaiting a heart transplant.
Dr. Benjamin Sun, OSU Medical Center's chief of cardiothoracic
surgery, and his team performed central Ohio's first implantation of a CardioWest
temporary Total Artificial Heart (TAH‑t) on May 26, 2006. The surgery went smoothly
"with no big surprises," Sun said.
The patient, a 58-year-old Ohio man, is expected to progress
and be well enough to be a candidate for transplantation in the near future, said
Dr. Sai Sudhakar, a cardiothoracic surgeon who is part of the surgical implant
team and leads the patient's overall care.
Sun and Sudhakar were among a team of physicians, nurses
and perfusionists who underwent training for implantation of the device earlier
this spring at University Medical Center in Tucson, AZ. The artificial heart manufacturer,
SynCardia Systems Inc., is based in Tucson.
"We're fortunate to be in the early group selected to
do this as part of the initial rollout of the artificial heart," Sun said. "We
are able to use the device to make a poor candidate for cardiac transplantation
into a good candidate."
The patient had suffered a massive heart attack, was
urgently bypassed and had been treated with other mechanical support devices that
"just weren't enough," Sudhakar said. The TAH‑t pumps up to 9.5 liters of blood
per minute through both ventricles - more than any other device - helping to rejuvenate
vital organs that have atrophied due to a failing heart.
Sun described the artificial heart as a "complicated
but simple device" that moves much more blood than the more widely used ventricular
assist devices, which are attached to a failing heart to pump blood. Removing
a heart to replace it with an artificial heart "is a drastic step that is difficult
for us as clinicians and for patients to accept, but the data show that its success
rate is really quite impressive, and better than those supported with ventricular
assist devices in certain groups of patients. This is a new therapy that only
a few hospitals are able to offer to the sickest patients whose only other chance
for survival is an urgent heart transplant," Sun said.
A New England Journal of Medicine paper published in
August 2004 about the pivotal study of the TAH‑t reported that the one-year survival
rate following human heart transplant for patients receiving the CardioWest temporary
Total Artificial Heart was 70 percent, compared to 31 percent for control patients
who did not receive the device.
OSU Medical Center is one of just four medical institutions
in the United States, and seven others worldwide, currently fully certified to
implant the CardioWest TAH‑t. The others in the United States are Virginia Commonwealth
University, the Cleveland Clinic and University Medical Center in Tucson, Ariz.
Sun's previous work with transplantation and cardiac
mechanical support devices helped secure OSU Medical Center's selection for certification.
Sun, also director of cardiac transplantation and mechanical support, leads a
cardiac care team at Ohio State's Richard M. Ross Heart Hospital with extensive
transplant experience. The highly specialized physicians, nurses and technicians
also are caring for patients supported by 10 different mechanical support devices,
many of which act as pumps for weakened ventricles.
The CardioWest TAH‑t is a pneumatic, biventricular, implantable
bridge-to-transplant system for full cardiac replacement, taking the place of
the failing heart in patients at imminent risk of death. The TAH‑t is a modern
version of the Jarvik-7 artificial heart of the 1980s. The TAH‑t is the only total
artificial heart approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Health Canada
and Communite Europeenne.
SynCardia Systems was formed in 2001 by Dr. Marvin Slepian,
engineer Richard G. Smith and Dr. Jack Copeland, considered the "father" of total
artificial heart therapy in the United States. All three, along with other medical
professionals, are instructors for the TAH‑t certification training program.
# # #
Media contact:
SynCardia Director of Communications
Donald Isaacs
Cell: 520-955-0660
About the CardioWest™ temporary Total Artificial
Heart
The CardioWest™ TAH‑t is a pneumatic, biventricular, implantable bridge-to-transplant
system for full cardiac replacement, taking the place of the failing heart in
patients at imminent risk of death. The device offers full circulatory support,
the shortest blood path and exposure to artificial surfaces, and the highest level
of cardiac output when compared with other artificial heart systems previously
tested. With the CardioWest™ TAH‑t, patients become better candidates for
eventual transplantation and have post-transplant survival rates equal to that
of non-device cardiac recipients.
About SynCardia Systems
Founded in 2001, SynCardia Systems is the developer of biomechanical cardiac replacement
and assist devices. Its CardioWest™ temporary Total Artificial Heart (TAH‑t)
is designed for severely ill patients with end-stage congestive heart failure.
The device serves as an in-hospital bridge-to-transplantation for patients at
imminent risk of death. SynCardia Systems is based in Tucson, Arizona and is on
the Web at http://www.syncardia.com.
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