World First: Man Walks Out of Hospital With Artificial Heart

An artificial heart kept an Australian man alive for a record 100-plus days in what doctors are calling an "unmitigated clinical success." As the Guardian reports, the man was given an experimental BiVACOR total artificial heart implant to address heart failure in late November and became the first to walk out of a hospital while using the device in February. He received a donor heart earlier this month, reports CNN. Though some 23 million people globally suffer heart failure, only about 6,000 receive donor hearts. More:

• The device: It's "the world's first implantable rotary blood pump that can act as a complete replacement for a human heart, using magnetic levitation technology to replicate the natural blood flow of a healthy heart," reports the Guardian. It's currently designed to be used as a bridge while a patient awaits a donor heart, but researchers hope that it could eventually serve as a permanent solution. The Australian government has ponied up $50 million for research.
• The patient: Described as being in his 40s, he is the first in Australia and sixth in the world to use the implant, which he received via a six-hour operation in Sydney.
• The previous record: The other five transplants all happened in the United States last year; the longest a patient retained one before receiving a transplanted human heart was 27 days—well before being discharged from the hospital. The median survival for donor hearts is 12.5 years, or roughly 4,500 days.

(More artificial heart stories.)