A 58-year-old man in the US has become the world's first person to survive for many days with a metal heart made of titanium after his own experienced end-stage failure and needing a transplant. According to doctors, he was provided with an artificial heart made by the medical technology company BiVACOR, which worked on the same scientific principle as high-speed magnetic levitation (MagLev) trains.

Doctors said the patient lived for eight days on the artificial organ after which he received a donor's heart – without any complications. “I’m incredibly proud to witness the successful first-in-human implant of our Total Artificial Heart,” Daniel Timms, co-founder of BiVACOR told the media.

According to doctors, the BiVACOR heart – which is about the size of a fist, works as a blood pumper that does not mimic the beating of a natural heart and instead utilizes a single, magnetically levitating rotor to pump blood to both the lungs and the rest of the body. This innovative design eliminates the need for flexible chambers or pumping diaphragms, resulting in a more durable and compact device.

Timms said the BiVACOR heart is suitable for most men and women and capable of providing enough cardiac output for an adult male undergoing exercise. The device is also designed so that its only moving part does not contact any other surface, eliminating chances for mechanical wear. According to experts, the design of the heart provides gaps large enough for blood flow, which helps to minimize trauma and offer a durable, reliable, and biocompatible heart replacement.

The company says the device is powered by a small, portable external controller that exits through the stomach.

Doctors say the artificial metal heart can help improve the chances of survival of individuals with severe heart failure as they wait for a donor’s heart. “The worldwide impact of a commercially viable, long-term mechanical replacement to the failing human heart will be tremendous,” scientists write in an abstract of an ongoing clinical study testing the heart.

According to scientists, BiVACOR heart breakthrough comes at a time when demand for heart transplants is rapidly increasing as less than 6,000 transplants are performed globally annually. Doctors say heart failure is a growing global epidemic - affecting an estimated 26 million people across the world, in which the cardiac muscles do not pump blood as well as they should.

The FDA approved BiVACOR to implant in up to five patients with end-stage heart failure in 2024.

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