2011 Volume 80 Issue 2 Pages 110-115
More than 23 million people suffer from heart failure at this moment in developed countries including Japan. The current gold standard treatment for patients with irreversible heart failure is heart transplantation, but the global shortage of donors limits the number of patients who can receive this treatment. It is in this context that the long-term or permanent use of artificial hearts including ventricular assist devices and total artificial hearts is universally considered the most promising complementary or substitute treatments for heart transplantation. Meanwhile, clinical studies and surveys have revealed that the most frequent complications and the causes of death in the long-term use of artificial hearts are infection, thrombosis and mechanical failure; all of which are typical drawbacks of artificial hearts. It is therefore important to develop the next-generation artificial hearts that have excellent durability with at least 2 years of event-free operation that will provide superior quality of life and can be used for destination therapy to save the patients with irreversible heart failure.
