Man lives with titanium heart, gets donor after 100 days

In a world's first experience, an Australian man implanted with an artificial titanium heart survived for over 100 days till he finally got a donor

[The BiVACOR, pictured, is a total heart replacement made of titanium.Credit: Jason Fochtman/Houston Chronicle via Getty]

In a world's first experience, an Australian man implanted with an artificial titanium heart survived for over 100 days till he finally got a donor.

The patient in his 40s, who has not been identified, received the artificial heart implant during a surgery at St. Vincent’s Hospital Sydney last November.

In February, the man with severe heart failure became the first person worldwide to leave hospital with the device, which kept him alive until a heart donor became available earlier this month, CNN reported.

BiVACOR

The man is the 6th person globally to receive the implant but first to wait for the longest period to date of someone with the technology. After the heart transplant he was now “recovering well", St Vincent’s Hospital, Monash University and the US-Australian company behind the device named BiVACOR, said in a statement Wednesday March 12, 2025.

In all cases, the BiVACOR, invented by biomedical engineer Daniel Timms, was used as a temporary measure before a donor heart became available.

BiVACOR is used as a stopgap for people with heart failure who are waiting for a donor heart, and previous recipients of this type of artificial heart had remained in US hospitals while it was in place, according to the Nature magazine.

"Whole New Ball Game"

The long-term ambition is to use the device to save more people who languish on waiting lists for suitable donors. According to the US Health Department, about 3,500 people received heart transplants in 2024. Around 4,400 joined the waiting list the same year.

Professor Chris Hayward, from the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute, said the BiVACOR heart ushered in “a whole new ball game for heart transplants.”

“Within the next decade we will see the artificial heart becoming the alternative for patients who are unable to wait for a donor heart or when a donor heart is simply not available,” said Hayward, who is overseeing the Australian patient’s recovery and was involved in preparing the device for clinical trials.

The device has already been tested in the Food and Drug Administration’s Early Feasibility Study in the United States, which saw five patients successfully implanted with the device.

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