Temporary Use of the Jarvik-7 Artificial Heart — The Pittsburgh Experience

Abstract

Nearly concurrently with the development of the pneumatic artificial heart [1, 2], cardiac transplantation emerged from an experimental to a therapeutic procedure [3]. By 1987, the International Cardiac Transplant Registry had 4600 entries, and current 1-year expectation for survival exceeds 80% [4]. The increased use of cardiac transplantation has prolonged the waiting period even for those patients who are most critically ill - from less than 5 days in 1980, when cardiac transplantation was performed in five centers in the United States, to more than 42 days in 1986, when the procedure was performed in more than 60 centers [3]. Our group has previously shown that there is a group of mortally ill patients who might survive if their circulation could be temporarily and safely supported by an intravenous, inotropic system and the intra-aortic balloon pump (IABP) [5].