Artificial Heart: It’s Development through Time

Our hearts are becoming fragile by the day. If we look at the statistics of USA, 610,000 people die due to heart disease every year. A large number of these deaths could have been prevented with the help of heart transplant but still there are too few hearts.

The first human heart transplant was performed by South African surgeon Christiaan Barnard. Soon surgeons around the world were transplanting hearts. But the problem was that all the recipients died within a year of transplant.

Since the late 1960s, doctors have been working on artificial heart. The most influential device was made by Willem Kolff, who invented the first dialysis machine for kidney.Kolff collaborated with fellow engineer, Robert Jarvik to work with him at University of Utah. What we got was Jarvik-7. It was made of two pumps, four valves and two air hoses. Due to its large size (like refrigerator), it could only be implanted in adults.

The US FDA approved the use of Jarvik-7 to be used on humans in 1982. Total five patients were implanted with Jarvik-7 but none of them survived more than 18 months. The device has been modified and renamed many times since then. SynCardia, a descendant of Jarvik-7 has been used many times.

Scientists are now working on a pulseless heart in which there is no heartbeat.