California Man Dies After Apparent Failure of Artificial Heart Compressor
SynCardia’s artificial heart is designed to keep patients alive while they wait for transplants or if they are in end-stage heart failure and not eligible for a transplant. More than 4,000 people are on the waiting list for a heart transplant, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing.
About 70 U.S. hospitals are certified by SynCardia to implant the artificial hearts. But not all transplant centers use them.
UC San Diego Health has not implanted an artificial heart in a patient in more than five years because its doctors believe they have a safer alternative, said Pretorius. It’s a mechanical pump known as a left ventricular assist device, or LVAD.
SynCardia’s artificial heart and portable driver have “too many moving parts” that make the likelihood of problems higher than with the LVAD, Pretorius said. If a malfunction does occur with the artificial heart, the patient has little chance to make it to the hospital in time, he said. “It’s a precarious system.”
More than 1,700 patients worldwide have received an artificial heart of any brand since the first one was implanted in a human being in 1982, and nearly all were SynCardia devices, according to the company. And more than 200 people have used the Freedom driver since 2010, when a clinical trial of the driver began, the company said. The FDA approved the portable compressor in 2014.
Every patient who goes home with the portable compressor has at least one backup and is supposed to have a caregiver nearby to switch to the backup in case an alarm sounds, Garippa said. The alarm might be set off by a physiological change in the patient, or a problem with the artificial heart or the driver, he said.
Lance White, who lives in Fontana, spent about two years at home with a SynCardia artificial heart and Freedom driver before having a successful heart transplant at Cedars-Sinai in August.
White, 49, said he had to return to the hospital four times when his driver’s alarm went off. Once, his backup alarm also went off, and he was taken by helicopter to the hospital. “It was a little scary,” he said.
But White said he was happy that the portable driver enabled him to be at home with his wife and two children while he waited for a donor heart.
“Any day of the week you’d rather be at home than in the hospital,” he said. “But nothing’s perfect. Machines are machines. I know they are trying to make it better so nobody passes away.”
Kaiser Health News is a national health policy news service that is part of the nonpartisan Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.