On July 9, 2024, a 58-year-old man in the United States successfully implanted the world's first titanium total artificial heart, which worked well for eight days before a human heart donor was implanted. The titanium heart was made by the American company BiVACOR.

"We are incredibly proud of this achievement and grateful for the courage and support of patients and their families," said founder Daniel Tims.

The total artificial heart (TAH) developed by US medical device company BiVACOR is made of titanium and is the first magnetically levitated heart for clinical use. The two-chambered metal heart is about the size of a fist and almost unbreakable, resistant to corrosion and mechanical wear. It consists of a single maglev rotor as the only moving part, responsible for pumping blood, and this rotor is hidden inside and does not come into contact with any other surface, so it does not cause friction damage.

Since the TAH is a titanium biventricular rotary blood pump using magnetic levitation technology, this means that the product has a unique pump design with only one moving part. Non-contact suspension of the rotor via magnetic levitation is designed to eliminate the possibility of mechanical wear and provide a large blood gap that minimizes blood trauma, providing a durable, reliable and biocompatible alternative to the heart.

When active, the device automatically adjusts to provide up to 12 liters of blood flow per minute, which is similar to the blood flow of a healthy human heart.

For millions of heart failure patients around the world, heart transplantation is the best treatment option. However, due to the scarcity of donor hearts and the complexity of transplant surgery, many patients can only gradually lose hope in the long wait. The emergence of BiVACOR TAH offers these patients a new way to survive.

The BiVACOR artificial heart is a long-term implanted TAH that has all the functions of a natural human heart, thus completely replacing the patient's own heart. The BiVACOR TAH is a small and compact device with a mass of only 512 grams.