The CardioWest C-70 TAH is a complete artificial heart. It is implanted into patients with total heart failure to bridge the time until heart transplantation—often up to a year. The artificial heart consists of an implantable core device and an air compressor outside the body. The implant is made of polyurethane and consists of two chambers (ventricles), each of which is divided by a membrane into a blood-filled and an air-filled half. The air chamber uses air pressure to suck in the blood or pump it out into the pulmonary system (lungs) or circulate it throughout the body. Valves ensure proper blood flow. The CardioWest device goes back to developments by Willem Kolff and Robert K. Jarvik in the 1970s and ‘80s. The Jarvik-7, the first permanent artificial heart, was first implanted in 1982.

credit: SynCardia Systems Inc. (US); on loan from the Deutsches Museum, Munich, www.deutsches-museum.de