1981 Volume 10 Issue 2 Pages 708-711
Today I would focus of this presentation to the problems related to the artificial heart in consideration of present status and future application to human. Since the factors related to the survival of animal replaced with TAH could be defined into severals, the following three major problems are now significant in consideration of clinical application. They are calcification, tissue overgrowth and high venous pressure. However, all of these three complications could be overcome by individual technical management, although they are not really ideal stage of research. Thus I could define positive and negative factors for the clinical application of TAH. The negative sides are including public attitude, standardization of medical device and lack of back up procedures or techniques, decreased incidence of cardiogenic shock, etc. For the positive side, I could point sufficient numbers of candidates, and reliability of the system at least for about 60 days of survival of the animal, etc.
Thus we are now in stage of clinical evaluation in limited trial. For example our research in Hiroshima University are concentrated to 1) the intermittent demand type use of assisted heart for myocardiopathia, 2) combined and alternative use of TAH and cardiac transplantation.
In the last the lack of adequate experimentation with use of experimental models of cardiac failure is one of the major concerns which we should focus in the next stage of the artificial heart research.
