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The development of a total artificial heart (TAH) has been challenging due to thromboembolism and hemorrhage. As part of a feasibility and safety trial, inventors in France who developed a bioprosthetic TAH (the CARMAT TAH) now report their experience in implanting the device in two male patients with end-stage dilated cardiomyopathy.
The device is made almost entirely with hemocompatible blood-chamber surfaces, including treated bovine pericardial and physiological myocardial tissue; physiologic pulsatile flow, delivered through viscoelastic contractility, allows for physiologic pressure curves. Implantation of the C-TAH requires removal of the ventricles.
The procedures were performed 9 months apart. The first patient (age, 76) presented wi…