SynCardia Systems announced today that on Aug. 2, Papworth Hospital in Cambridge discharged the United Kingdom’s first Total Artificial Heart patient to wait for a matching donor heart at home with his wife and 5-year-old son using the Freedom portable driver.
“Two years ago I was cycling nine miles to work and nine miles back every day, but by the time I was admitted to hospital, I was struggling to walk even a few yards,” said Total Artificial Heart patient Matthew Green. “I am really excited about going home and just being able to do the everyday things that I haven’t been able to do for such a long time, such as playing in the garden with my son and cooking a meal for my family.”
Mr. Green, 40, suffered from arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy (ARVC), a heart muscle disease that results in arrhythmia, heart failure and sudden death. His health had been declining over recent years with his only available option being a heart transplant.
“Matthew’s condition was deteriorating rapidly and we discussed with him the possibility of receiving this device, because without it he may not have survived the wait until a suitable donor heart could be found for him,” said Mr. Steven Tsui, Consultant Cardiothoracic Surgeon and Director of the Transplant Service. “The operation went extremely well and Matthew has made an excellent recovery.”
On June 9, Mr. Green became the first patient in the United Kingdom to receive SynCardia’s Total Artificial Heart. Two months later, he was discharged from the hospital using the Freedom portable driver. Weighing 13.5 pounds, including two onboard lithium-ion batteries, the Freedom driver is the world’s first wearable portable driver designed to power SynCardia’s Total Artificial Heart both inside and outside the hospital. The Freedom driver is CE approved for use in Europe and undergoing an FDA-approved Investigational Device Exemption (IDE) clinical study in the U.S.
Papworth Hospital is the first and only hospital in the UK certified to implant SynCardia’s Total Artificial Heart. Papworth performed the UK’s first heart transplant in 1979 and has been using mechanical devices to support patients with end-stage heart failure since the 1980’s.