SynCardia total artificial heart as a bridge to transplant: Current results at the National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases in Slovakia.

In this case series we present our initial experience with the implantation of the SynCardia total artificial heart (TAH) in three patients, the first of which was the first SynCardia TAH implantation in the Visegrad Four (V4) countries. The first and the third patients, after 195 and 126 days of TAH support respectively, experienced successful heart transplants, while the second patient on postoperative day 11 died due to a ruptured undiagnosed brain aneurysm. Our results show that the SynCardia TAH is an alternative therapy in patients with severe end-stage biventricular heart failure waiting for heart transplantation. It is an intermediate step until the development of genetically modified animal hearts, engineered bioartificial hearts or hearts from induced pluripotent stem cells could replace the failing heart in patients with end-stage heart disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]