St. Vincent's Hospital performs Australia's first implant of SynCardia temporary Total Artificial Heart

On Aug. 5, St. Vincent's Hospital in Sydney performed Australia's first implant of the SynCardia temporary Total Artificial Heart. The patient, a 50-year-old male suffering from total heart failure, is the first recipient of the Total Artificial Heart in the Southern Hemisphere. The surgery was performed by heart surgeons Drs. Phillip Spratt and Paul Jansz.

"At any one time there can be around 30 people waiting for a heart transplant at our hospital," said Dr. Spratt, Head of the St. Vincent's Hospital Heart/Lung Transplant Unit. "We selected this patient to receive the Total Artificial Heart as a bridge-to-transplant because without it, he would have had less than two weeks to live."

Angelo Tigano had suffered from idiopathic cardiomyopathy for more than a decade. Walking more than a few steps left him gasping for breath, until finally he was unable to eat or sleep. Mr. Tigano says he hopes the Total Artificial Heart will improve his quality of life and allow him to return to some of the normal activities he did before suffering heart failure.

"The Total Artificial Heart has no equal," said Dr. Spratt, who led the Total Artificial Heart implant surgery. "Unlike a left ventricular assist device (LVAD), which helps the failing left ventricle, the Total Artificial Heart replaces both the left and right heart ventricles which are responsible for pumping blood."

The implant surgery was proctored by world renowned heart surgeon Dr. Jack Copeland, who recently joined the faculty at the University of California, San Diego, and has performed more than 100 implants of the Total Artificial Heart. St. Vincent's Hospital is the 31^st hospital in the world to become a SynCardia Certified Center. Currently, there are Certified Centers in the U.S., Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Austria, Russia and now Australia.

St. Vincent's is the largest transplant hospital in Australia and will serve as SynCardia's Regional Certification Center for the Asia-Pacific. Device Technologies is the Australasian distributor of the SynCardia Total Artificial Heart and is a major supplier of leading edge medical equipment and consumables to hospitals and healthcare professionals throughout Australia and New Zealand.

Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in Australia. Despite the increase in this condition and consequent growing demand for transplants, the supply of donor hearts is falling in Australia. In 2009, a total of 60 heart transplants took place, compared with 82 in 2008. Australia has one of the lowest donation rates in the developed world with only 12 donors per million in 2008.