VIDEO: Total artificial hearts: Exploring the future of heart transplant technology with a renowned surgeon

While total artificial heart (TAH) technology has been used in heart failure patients who need a heart transplant since the late 1980s, limitations such as high costs and the complex cardiac surgery implant procedure have restricted wider usage. However, newer TAH technology now in development may help increase the popularity of this technology in the coming years. 

"The artificial heart works extremely well as a bridge to transplant. The complete role of the artificial heart is to eventually be a complete replacement of the heart and offer something different than heart transplantation on a permanent basis. That is the true role. The new artificial hearts that are being designed and developed and are going into trial have a lifetime of 10 to 20 years. So these devices hopefully will offer something beside transplantation as the only alternative," explained Francisco Arabia, Sr., MD, MBA, physician executive of the advanced heart program and a cardiothoracic surgeon with Banner Health in Phoenix. He spoke with Cardiovascular Business about recent trends in TAH technology.

Right now there are about 40 centers in the United States and about 20 more internationally that have been trained to implant the artificial heart. But Arabia said volumes have been low, in part because patient selection can be a challenge. At Banner, he noted, they perform approximately one TAH implant per month.