Australian man survives 100 days with artificial heart(theguardian.com)
theguardian.com
Australian man survives 100 days with artificial heart
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/mar/12/australian-man-survives-100-days-with-artificial-heart-in-world-first-success
109 comments
Really sucks a company doing something important like this is struggling. Such kind of company shouldn't need to worry about profits because we know how profit-minded medical breakthroughs look like.
Health economics is a fairly large field, and there are tradeoffs everywhere. Generally, you try to maximise quality-adjusted life years gained, which for rare diseases doesn't tend to win.
If you can give one person ten good years for a million in a rare disease, you can give ten people twenty good years in a less rare disease, so those tend to get more funding.
If you can give one person ten good years for a million in a rare disease, you can give ten people twenty good years in a less rare disease, so those tend to get more funding.
True, but rare disease treatments have little to do with artificial hearts, they are a treatment for a very common disease but at an impractical state for most candidates.
Easy to say, but who SHOULD pay for this, lenmeldy or zolgensma?
(Compared to those treatments an artificial heart is cheap.)
Those easily cost more than the average human earns in their life.
Should the public be financially burdened by outrageously expensive research and treatments for rare diseases?
When do we say, it‘s enough, your condition is not compatible with life, enjoy some palliative treatment?
(Compared to those treatments an artificial heart is cheap.)
Those easily cost more than the average human earns in their life.
Should the public be financially burdened by outrageously expensive research and treatments for rare diseases?
When do we say, it‘s enough, your condition is not compatible with life, enjoy some palliative treatment?
> Should the public be financially burdened by outrageously expensive research and treatments for rare diseases?
Yes, precisely because they are rare and thus market forces will fail to provide a treatment.
> When do we say, it‘s enough, your condition is not compatible with life, enjoy some palliative treatment?
That will vary case by case, depending on how much the public votes in favor of socialized care vs the suffering of these people.
Yes, precisely because they are rare and thus market forces will fail to provide a treatment.
> When do we say, it‘s enough, your condition is not compatible with life, enjoy some palliative treatment?
That will vary case by case, depending on how much the public votes in favor of socialized care vs the suffering of these people.
I think the point raised by GP is about distribution of finite resources for maximum benefit. E.g. do we spend a large amount of money to extend someone's life by 2 years if we could spend the same money to save 10 lives elsewhere?
1. I think we underestimate our scarcity nowadays, since much of it is completely manufactured by rich powers who want to keep an obedient working class. We are definitely approaching a point of achieving post scarcity society. No one should have to starve nor fear for their health in 90% of cases.
2. In such a case, we'd add help chip in for it. There aren't thousands of new people every day needing artificial hearts. There is certainly enough commerce in any first world country to fund such cases.
2. In such a case, we'd add help chip in for it. There aren't thousands of new people every day needing artificial hearts. There is certainly enough commerce in any first world country to fund such cases.
Pending AGI, I don’t think medical intervention at the cutting edge of innovation will ever be post scarcity. It makes more sense in relation to things that are well established enough that they are well understood and producible at scale.
> if we could spend the same money to save 10 lives elsewhere?
... if we could spend the same money to extend 10 lives by n years elsewhere.
... if we could spend the same money to extend 10 lives by n years elsewhere.
It's research like this that throughout the ages has led our life expectancy to grow as much as it has. We are just tackling more and more niche areas because we have solved a lot of the easy stuff.
It's like computers, but more life threatening :)
It's like computers, but more life threatening :)
> Those easily cost more than the average human earns in their life.
For this, we have insurance - to distribute the chance of utterly bad luck across all in society.
For this, we have insurance - to distribute the chance of utterly bad luck across all in society.
sometimes I read these sentiments in 2025, and read about “Shanidar 1” who lived ~50k years ago and just feel… sad.
Id never heard of them - for others they were a Neanderthal whose remains show signs of healing and treatment for various ailments, that could have killed them.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanidar_Cave
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanidar_Cave
Yes, its called a developed society and compassion for a fellow less fortunate man. Christianity for example has this at its absolute core, as do all other religions. But since I saw first hand how US population in general sees and treats homeless and those with mental issues, I dont think the message gets through.
Whole (not only) western world can make such system work for a fraction of US healthcare costs, why shouldnt US?
Maybe in 5 years after some health issue or accident you will end up on sone lifelong treatment, then you may reconsider how others will help you survive.
Whole (not only) western world can make such system work for a fraction of US healthcare costs, why shouldnt US?
Maybe in 5 years after some health issue or accident you will end up on sone lifelong treatment, then you may reconsider how others will help you survive.
> Christianity for example has this at its absolute core,
Some Christian groups have it at the core. There's lots of those that will be happy to see others suffer.
Some Christian groups have it at the core. There's lots of those that will be happy to see others suffer.
Christianity with a capital C has rules. If you don't obey them you are not Christian.
In theory, sure. But once those not obeying the rules become a large part of the system without a serious pushback, it means the rules don't really matter. For example there's a national Catholic radio station which has been told off by the pope and... still runs and has local church support. Signed, "little devil" as called by my "Christian" family listening to it.
At some point it's just playing no-true-Scotsman, while the original meaning of the word died.
At some point it's just playing no-true-Scotsman, while the original meaning of the word died.
> When do we say, it‘s enough, your condition is not compatible with life, enjoy some palliative treatment?
When it doesn’t affect you, obviously. Maybe if some billionaire had 5 less jets, we could push medicine a little bit further and save more lives for the benefit of humanity.
When it doesn’t affect you, obviously. Maybe if some billionaire had 5 less jets, we could push medicine a little bit further and save more lives for the benefit of humanity.
>Maybe if some billionaire had 5 less jets, we could push medicine a little bit further and save more lives for the benefit of humanity.
Where in the world did this strange leap of logic come from? For one thing, whether most billionaires have one or more jets has nothing at all to do with medical funding (which is in any case colossal, far larger than any airplane budget of any number of billionaires).
Secondly, it's precisely the billioniares and in some cases multimillionaires who finance a lot of the more extreme tech explorations to life extension. Being fantastically rich is exceptionally conducive to wanting to live as long as possible. Any technology their funding leads to isn't going to stay bottled up for long.
More fundamentally, there seems to be a sort of odd reasoning with these arguments that if X amount of current funding for healthcare, no matter how incredibly huge, doesn't achieve Y results to fix an endless number of hard medical problems, it must be because someone is siphoning off needed funding. Considering how much funding healthcare gets already, at least allow that the problem might just be one of extremely difficult problems that won't be solved too easily regardless of how much money is thrown at them..
Where in the world did this strange leap of logic come from? For one thing, whether most billionaires have one or more jets has nothing at all to do with medical funding (which is in any case colossal, far larger than any airplane budget of any number of billionaires).
Secondly, it's precisely the billioniares and in some cases multimillionaires who finance a lot of the more extreme tech explorations to life extension. Being fantastically rich is exceptionally conducive to wanting to live as long as possible. Any technology their funding leads to isn't going to stay bottled up for long.
More fundamentally, there seems to be a sort of odd reasoning with these arguments that if X amount of current funding for healthcare, no matter how incredibly huge, doesn't achieve Y results to fix an endless number of hard medical problems, it must be because someone is siphoning off needed funding. Considering how much funding healthcare gets already, at least allow that the problem might just be one of extremely difficult problems that won't be solved too easily regardless of how much money is thrown at them..
I suspect this is an intentionally edgy take but I'll bite. Basic research has proven thousands of times to be a force multiplier in everything, healthcare included. The reason we do this (if you're strictly looking at it from a sociopaths point of view) is that it benefits the next generation of design when we learn why these ones break.
The reason you should want to do it if you have a functioning human soul is to lessen the suffering of others if you have the ability to do so.
The reason you should want to do it if you have a functioning human soul is to lessen the suffering of others if you have the ability to do so.
> An Australian man with heart failure has become the first person in the world to walk out of a hospital with a total artificial heart implant.
So... Why don't they mention Carmat?
So... Why don't they mention Carmat?
This was very unclear in the article - typically artificial hearts have external pumps and motors, the internal component is basically a fancy valve to manage flow/oxygenation correctly. But this one has an internal pump and motor, like a real heart, but with an external battery pack. (The battery currently only lasts four hours...I am too absent-minded to be trusted with this!)
This article was a bit more clear: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-03-12/sydney-hospital-artif...
This article was a bit more clear: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-03-12/sydney-hospital-artif...
I guess it’s to do with what is considered “artificial”? Carmat uses bovine pericardium to line blood contacting surfaces.
I've worked in this industry (LVADS and artificial hearts) and met Dr. Timms personally several times.
He and his team have been working on this for decades. It's real, and good stuff.
Congratulations to the whole team, this is the culmination of decades of effort from thousands of people.
Well done
He and his team have been working on this for decades. It's real, and good stuff.
Congratulations to the whole team, this is the culmination of decades of effort from thousands of people.
Well done
2016: Successful heart transplant after 1374 days living with a total artificial heart
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26819291/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26819291/
Yeah, I find that confusing too. Recently I heard in a YT video with a cardiologist (Medlife Crisis) that some people in the US lived more than 4 years with an artificial heart.
The article calls it the "world’s first implantable rotary blood pump that can act as a complete replacement for a human heart", so maybe there's a difference but the article is written as if this was the first artificial heart ever which it clearly isn't.
The article calls it the "world’s first implantable rotary blood pump that can act as a complete replacement for a human heart", so maybe there's a difference but the article is written as if this was the first artificial heart ever which it clearly isn't.
How does the device regulate the heartbeat speed? I mean, how does it know that it needs to pump blood faster or slower?
Blood oxygen sensors seem relatively cheap and low power.
I wonder if they could use that as the feedback mechanism.
Ideally if the sensors are small, low power, and cheap enough CO2 and lactic acid levels would also be good to check on to increase bloodflow.
I wonder if they could use that as the feedback mechanism.
Ideally if the sensors are small, low power, and cheap enough CO2 and lactic acid levels would also be good to check on to increase bloodflow.
That’s a good question!
As a layman I would assume there’s no way to read/detect the hormones that would demand acceleration of the heartbeat? So one has to take it easy for the rest of their life? Or maybe there’s a way to manipulate it manually?
If the heart is no longer the weak link, can you permanently increase level of blood flow to something akin to moderate exertion? Presumably you are now limited by what the veins can handle, but maybe they have more flexible performance characteristics?
Layman, but I imagine if your blood is flowing to fast doesn't help much the lungs have certain diffusion rates, the waste products wouldn't be increased because your not doing as much work. There is probably an optimal point where anymore just doesn't really matter.
I beat there is some psychological factors to thought you don't have a beat or pulse that is probably unsettling
I beat there is some psychological factors to thought you don't have a beat or pulse that is probably unsettling
IIRC this problem affects heart transplants as the nerve that controls the speed of the heart is severed during the operation.
Can't implants read from that nerve? Or the issue is that the "protocol" is hard to reverse?
My friend had this pump pack attached to him (the same thing Dick Cheney had) and it was constant flow. His heart technically worked but it was so weak you could barely detect it. The pump was just constant circulation, no pumping.
Hmm, do body processes depend on the fact that blood flows in pulses, and an optimal heart must be pulsed?
It used to be assumed to be the case because the heartbeat is so closely associated with life. This is why the first artificial hearts replicated pulses, despite requiring much more complexity. It turns out that your body can function more or less fine with continuous blood flow.
Yes, with this device, there is no pulse.
Do they do something unrelated to the function of pumping blood, just to make the patient feel a heartbeat for comfort?
I dont know for sure but the doctors were on TV in Houston a few months ago and IIRC they said no pulse.
They did mention that one has been running continuously for two years in vitro, and the idea is for it to be reliable enough to eventually implant permanently in some situations.
They did mention that one has been running continuously for two years in vitro, and the idea is for it to be reliable enough to eventually implant permanently in some situations.
As a correction I saw some updated info where they say a pulse is definitely created by this device, so I must not have heard the brief TV mention accurately.
I think what impresses me a lot is a smoother-running machine :)
I think what impresses me a lot is a smoother-running machine :)
Not just for physical activity but for emotions as well, the palpitations before a skydive or the increased heart rate when you are kissing your crush/GF/wife
Not to mention the erection thing.
These things seems trival and of relative importance when compared with life or death but they are still important to go back to live a normal life.
Not to mention the erection thing.
These things seems trival and of relative importance when compared with life or death but they are still important to go back to live a normal life.
It doesn't, neither do lvads
I would assume the kind of people who need a replacement heart are already on beta-blocker drugs, which clamp the peak heart-rate down significantly, so their body would already be used to a very limited heart-rate range.
Transplanted hearts don’t regulate as well as the original one. They seem to default to a higher resting rate, with less heart rate variability.
So maybe, for a temporary device, it isn’t necessary?
So maybe, for a temporary device, it isn’t necessary?
Accelerometers to measure physical activity?
Let's hope this improves rapidly every year and can become a convenient, inexpensive temporary replacement in a few decades.
I wonder what the progress curve will look like.
This time it's 100 days, next year will it be 110 or 200? I wonder what the shape of the curve is?
I wonder what the progress curve will look like.
This time it's 100 days, next year will it be 110 or 200? I wonder what the shape of the curve is?
It's longer than 100 days already in their preclinical testing but they took it out because the patient found a heart transplant.
They say one upcoming improvement is wireless power via skin, somehow. At the moment the rechargeable battery lasts for five hours.
They say one upcoming improvement is wireless power via skin, somehow. At the moment the rechargeable battery lasts for five hours.
Sounds kinda scary. So if the battery goes flat or gets disconnected you just immediately die?
These devices have double batteries, external power, and will beep like crazy already quite a while before it runs flat.
I can’t find the link now, but that chap who died a couple of years ago after living most of his life in an iron lung, had a similar story of being transported home on the back of a flatbed truck with a generator running, if the power went out he suffocated. His mother slept by his bed and in the case of a power cut had to manually help him breathe until the power returned.
An amazing man and amazing he made it so far in life.
An amazing man and amazing he made it so far in life.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Alexander_(polio_survivor...
Quote: He spent eighteen months in the hospital. At discharge, his parents rented a portable generator and a truck to bring him and his iron lung home. Beginning in 1954, with help from the March of Dimes and a physical therapist named Mrs. Sullivan, Alexander taught himself glossopharyngeal breathing, which allowed him to leave the iron lung for gradually increasing periods of time.
Quote: He spent eighteen months in the hospital. At discharge, his parents rented a portable generator and a truck to bring him and his iron lung home. Beginning in 1954, with help from the March of Dimes and a physical therapist named Mrs. Sullivan, Alexander taught himself glossopharyngeal breathing, which allowed him to leave the iron lung for gradually increasing periods of time.
I mean, if this didn't exist you'd just immediately die a lot sooner. So I think it's a fair trade-off.
closest thing to the arc reactor in the iron man movie...
jart(1)
A very interesting tour is the small museums at Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Heart Institute. They were literally making replacement parts on a sewing machine 60 years ago. (On the other hand, they let one of those surgeons practice too far long and he left a sponge in my grandfather during an angioplasty. He was ultimately reopened and cleaned out and died of something else a few years later)
I wasn't expecting that steampunk look.
It is kinda cool looking. But if people can see it in your chest you are doing it wrong.
My guess is that they put it in some kind of rubbery enclosure before installing it, but who knows? Maybe it's not actually a problem to have hard edges.
I don't see any untoward sharp edges. Though connecting the main blood pipes are would be an interesting trick to know about. No hose clamps there!
A colleague of mine required to have much metal put in his arm bones after an accident. He mentioned it always felt a bit heavy and cold. I can't imagine what this would feel like in your chest.
A colleague of mine required to have much metal put in his arm bones after an accident. He mentioned it always felt a bit heavy and cold. I can't imagine what this would feel like in your chest.
CNC'ed out of a block of titanium
It looks... very crude.
Looks like the device is powered by a battery carried by the patient that is connected through what is called a ‘driveline’ basically a wire coming out of your belly connecting to the heart. Really amazing stuff here, especially considering failure of the heart is THE most common cause of death in human beings. One day getting an artificial heart at an old age may be as common as a teenager getting braces.
https://www.monash.edu/news/articles/monash,-bivacor-led-con...
Just avoid getting into any bar brawls with Nausicaans.
(https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Tapestry_(episode) although, the point of the episode was, in hindsight, the fight was the correct move)
(https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Tapestry_(episode) although, the point of the episode was, in hindsight, the fight was the correct move)
Oh man, you gave me goosebumps just thinking about that episode. That is one of the best episodes [1] of any sci-fi, ever, IMO. That episode changed my entire life perspective.
Looking at the writer's Wiki [2], he was also behind some amazing DS9 episodes like House of Quark and Rules of engagement. Gah, what happened to sci-fi? Turns out he was even the head guy on For All Mankind. Nobel Prize effect, studio pressure, what is it?
[1] - https://ww1.goojara.to/eGJakb
[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_D._Moore
Looking at the writer's Wiki [2], he was also behind some amazing DS9 episodes like House of Quark and Rules of engagement. Gah, what happened to sci-fi? Turns out he was even the head guy on For All Mankind. Nobel Prize effect, studio pressure, what is it?
[1] - https://ww1.goojara.to/eGJakb
[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_D._Moore
Ron D Moore also worked on the remake of Battlestar Galactica. I think one of the first real binge-watched shows that I can think of. He was the guy who pushed for story arcs in DS9, while they were trying so hard to keep the show episodic. Those story arcs were some of the best Trek ever, and I think the success of that, and with the follow up success of BSG really changed TV a lot.
Ahhh!!! That makes a lot of sense. I had no idea. I ended up catching one of the old Asian bird flus some time back, and grabbed BSG to get through it all. What was going to be a show here and there ended up turning into a binge watch as well. No idea if that was good or bad for getting over that flu, but it sure made it enjoyable!
And yeah completely agreed on the various arcs in DS9. I suppose the idea of episodic content was to try to ensure that a viewer didn't feel confused/left out if they ended up missing an episode, but you can do sooo much more with arcs and anyhow, there's always the 'Last time on DS9...' intro spiel. The Dominion/Jem'Hadar/Vorta/Founders were such a memorable and somehow sympathetic (well... in part) antagonist.
Somehow thinking about that (as well as the Cardassian/Garik arcs) made me go look up the Chain of Command TNG episode [1]. And yeah, lo and behold, Ron Moore was there too. What a talent.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chain_of_Command_(Star_Trek:_T...
And yeah completely agreed on the various arcs in DS9. I suppose the idea of episodic content was to try to ensure that a viewer didn't feel confused/left out if they ended up missing an episode, but you can do sooo much more with arcs and anyhow, there's always the 'Last time on DS9...' intro spiel. The Dominion/Jem'Hadar/Vorta/Founders were such a memorable and somehow sympathetic (well... in part) antagonist.
Somehow thinking about that (as well as the Cardassian/Garik arcs) made me go look up the Chain of Command TNG episode [1]. And yeah, lo and behold, Ron Moore was there too. What a talent.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chain_of_Command_(Star_Trek:_T...
Don't neglect your payments and fall afoul of the Repo-Men either. :P
I could have sworn there were artificial hearts in the 1980s, or at least news stories about them
Probably this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AbioCor
They technically worked but they were expensive, painful, and basically just kept you alive on a bed. In essence they were like a more invasive version of the iron lung but required a team to maintain.
For this reason while you may have heard it used it various trials with "success" they were considered a failure in the end and rejected by the FDA. I've spoken to some people who worked on it and the feelings are pretty bittersweet.
Learning from this, Abiomed later brought a heart pump called the "Impella" to market which works to assist your heart instead of replace it. This device is cool for different reasons and can actually save peoples lives instead of merely prolong them a few years.
The new artificial heart in the OP is more sophisticated than the AbioCor, the science keeps improving.
They technically worked but they were expensive, painful, and basically just kept you alive on a bed. In essence they were like a more invasive version of the iron lung but required a team to maintain.
For this reason while you may have heard it used it various trials with "success" they were considered a failure in the end and rejected by the FDA. I've spoken to some people who worked on it and the feelings are pretty bittersweet.
Learning from this, Abiomed later brought a heart pump called the "Impella" to market which works to assist your heart instead of replace it. This device is cool for different reasons and can actually save peoples lives instead of merely prolong them a few years.
The new artificial heart in the OP is more sophisticated than the AbioCor, the science keeps improving.
The Jarvik-7 artificial heart was first implanted in a human patient in 1982. But those early designs were bulky, required external power sources, and were more of a temporary measure
This is an incredible milestone! And not just for the patient, but for the future of heart failure treatment. The fact that someone was able to walk out of the hospital and live with a fully artificial heart for over 100 days is mind-blowing. Still a long way to go before these could replace transplants entirely, but the progress is undeniable
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How much power does the heart need to pump the liquid and what is it's life expectancy? Any technical specifications for a product that can work in the human body?
Crazy how slow medicine progresses compared to technology.
Biology, and by extension medicine, only started to look like engineering in the last ~50 years because it requires serious advancements from many other fields of science. As in, you can't discover cells if you haven't invented a microscope yet. It's literally reverse engineering alien technology, in the sense that it's something that wasn't created by humans. And you can't really reverse engineer something when you don't have any tools to meaningfully interact with it and pick it apart.
How do you even compare those two things? And how do you separate technology from medicine? This statement seems like pure nonsense, hinging on a slippery definition of "technology" that in some contexts means "consumer gizmos," other contexts means "computers," and in yet other contexts means "Civilization tech tree."
I disagree - if you move fast and break things then people die. The human body is not a single well-understood system; everyone is different in subtle ways, which incidentally is why personalised medicine is becoming a thing.
People die if you move too slow too.
It definitely feels that way, especially compared to fields like computing where progress is exponential. But with medicine, the stakes are so much higher... Every breakthrough has to go through years of testing, trials, and regulatory hurdles to make sure it's actually safe and effective
I hope it dramatically speeds up as AI improves. ASI is likely only scalable route to solving the medical issues that plague humanity.
I imagine the slow link is that you have to actually test stuff in the real world, on people. Who in this case could very easily die if it doesn’t work. Isn’t like programming where you can just keep whacking it until it works.
The question I have is why they they die if it doesn't work. Imagine how much faster we could progress if people didn't when an experiment failed. But how could we even accomplish such a thing? Telemetrics to catch issues early, and redundancy to hold the patient over until the issue can be found and corrected?
In this case, two separate mechanical hearts built on different principles hoping they would have different failure modes? Would it even be possible to hook that up correctly? Just brainstorming.
In this case, two separate mechanical hearts built on different principles hoping they would have different failure modes? Would it even be possible to hook that up correctly? Just brainstorming.
Its even worse than you think, there are complex and numerous requirement hoops you need to jump through for medical software and hardware. It is not easy.
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Wait I thought that was blockchain
Building an ASI that cares enough about humanity to solve our medical problems sounds much harder than actually solving them.
I think ASI being able to care, in any sense, is something that is far off. Same for ASI itself, any optimism that it's invention is somehow inevitable in our lifetime is severely misplaced.
Only to die at the stroke of midnight on the 101st day
Or get it replaced by a donor heart ? Please read at least the subtitle before commenting
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However this is really difficult and the company is struggling financially as the market is rather limited.