Cardiac Assist Devices, Total Artificial Heart and Unconventional Dialysis

Abstract

It was 1957 when one of the authors (W.J.K.) began research on total mechanical artificial heart implantation. From that time on it was difficult, until only very recently, to keep an experimental animal alive with an artificial heart for longer than two or three days. However, in 1971 the longstanding question of whether the artificial heart could sustain the animal’s entire circulation beyond the time of recovery from surgery and maintain the animal in a reasonable physiological state with a mechanical pump was answered. To date at least three groups in the country have been able to sustain a calf with an implanted mechanical heart for over three days. These long-term survivors with total mechanical hearts have brought forth a few unanswered questions.