A titanium heart!?
At the Texas Heart Institute in the USA, doctors placed a new artificial heart made of titanium into a 58-year-old man. This new heart is like a real-life superhero gadget for people who need it!
About the heart!
In California, USA, a company called BiVACOR made the Total Artificial Heart (TAH). This heart functions using magnetic levitation technology, or maglev for short.
Maglev is like magic! It uses magnets to make things float in the air. The magnets push and pull on each other to keep things up. This technology is also used in some super-fast trains!
Most heart pumps have many parts that can wear out due to many moving parts. But the TAH has a spinning blood pump with a moving part that floats using magnets and helps pump blood.
As it floats, the pump doesn’t need any physical parts to spin it, which reduces wear and tear and makes it more efficient!
Will the man have this heart permanently inside him?
No. The man had a very sick heart and needed this device to help him stay alive for a few days. This device helped him until he could get a new heart from someone else.
Right now, this amazing device is only used while people wait for their new hearts. Once they get their new hearts, the device is removed.
However, someday this device could be used as a permanent heart!
