Mayo Clinic honored for 100% bridge-to-transplant for artificial hearts

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. – Mayo Clinic is among two national medical institutions honored because 100 percent of its patients who received the artificial heart were "bridged" to human heart transplants. Mayo Clinic has implanted five patients with the device over the past eight months, and all five went on to receive a donor heart.

The honor was bestowed by SynCardia Systems, Inc., Tucson, Ariz., manufacturer of the CardioWest temporary Total Artificial Heart (TAH-t).

Mayo Clinic became a certified center for implantation of the artificial heart in August 2007, and the first patient to receive the artificial heart, a 59-year-old woman from Gilbert, Ariz., was implanted on Aug. 22, 2007. Thirteen days later, she was the recipient of a human heart.

The surgery was done by Francisco Arabia, M.D., director of Mayo Clinic's Heart Transplant Program. Since that time, Dr. Arabia and his team have bridged four more patients, and all went on to receive transplants.

"Our success with this device is a tribute to both our medical staff and the proven life-saving capability when we are able to use this device as a bridge until a donor heart becomes available," said Dr. Arabia. "Using the artificial heart, we can help some of the sickest patients get a second chance at life."

The artificial heart is approved as a bridge-to-transplant for patients with end-stage biventricular heart failure. Their survival depends on receiving a donor heart – or an artificial heart as a bridge to human heart transplantation.

The other medical center honored was Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center in Richmond, Va.

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Mayo Clinic is the first and largest integrated, not-for-profit group practice in the world. As a leading academic medical center in the Southwest, Mayo Clinic focuses on providing specialty and surgical care in more than 65 disciplines at its outpatient facility in north Scottsdale and at Mayo Clinic Hospital. The 244-licensed bed hospital is located at 56th Street and Mayo Boulevard (north of Bell Road) in northeast Phoenix, and provides inpatient care to support the medical and surgical specialties of the clinic, which is located at 134th Street and Shea Boulevard in Scottsdale.

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About Mayo Clinic

Mayo Clinic is the first and largest integrated, not-for-profit group practice in the world. Doctors from every medical specialty work together to care for patients, joined by common systems and a philosophy of "the needs of the patient come first." More than 3,300 physicians, scientists and researchers and 46,000 allied health staff work at Mayo Clinic, which has sites in Rochester, Minn., Jacksonville, Fla., and Scottsdale/Phoenix, Ariz. Collectively, the three locations treat more than half a million people each year. To obtain the latest news releases from Mayo Clinic, go to www.mayoclinic.org/news. For information about research and education visit www.mayo.edu. MayoClinic.com is available as a resource for your health stories.