Australia’s Largest Transplant Hospital to Begin Certification Training to Become Asia-Pacific Regional Training Center for CardioWest Artificial Heart

PARIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--On July 28 and 29, Director of Cardiopulmonary Transplant and Cardiothoracic Unit Dr. Philip Spratt, Cardiothoracic and Transplant surgeon Dr. Paul Jansz and the cardiac transplant team from St. Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney, Australia, will travel to Paris to begin the first phase of certification training for the CardioWest™ temporary Total Artificial Heart (TAH-t).

“We are very excited to be the first hospital in Australia,” said Dr. Jansz. “As the future CardioWest training center for the Asia-Pacific region, we look forward to expanding the use of this life-saving technology at our hospital and other top transplant hospitals in Australia and New Zealand.”

St. Vincent’s will be the 35^th hospital in the world to complete the first phase of certification training. Since performing Australia’s first heart transplant in 1968, St. Vincent’s has been on the cutting edge of cardiac surgery. The hospital’s current one-year survival rate for heart transplant is 95 percent, compared to 86 percent in the U.S. in 2007 (American Heart Association).

During the training, SynCardia will hold a roundtable discussion with its leading international proctors, including renowned cardiothoracic surgeon Dr. Jack Copeland, who since the mid-1980s has pioneered innovations for the CardioWest artificial heart. Dr. Copeland will be joined by Pr. Daniel Duveau, Medical Director at University Hospital of Nantes in France, and Dr. Michiel Morshuis, Dr. Sebastian Schulte-Eistrup and Dr. Latif Arusoglu, senior physicians at the Heart and Diabetes Center NRW in Bad Oeynhausen, Germany.

Also attending the training will be representatives from Device Technologies, SynCardia’s regional distributor for the CardioWest artificial heart. Device Technologies is the certified supplier for more than 70 companies specializing in medical and surgical devices used by public and private healthcare providers in the region.

The CardioWest artificial heart is the first and only FDA, Health Canada and CE Mark approved temporary Total Artificial Heart in the world. There have been more than 740 implants of the CardioWest, accounting for more than 135 patient years of life on the artificial heart.

In the 10-year pivotal clinical study of the CardioWest artificial heart (New England Journal of Medicine 2004; 351: 859-867), 79 percent of patients receiving the CardioWest survived to transplant. This is the highest bridge-to-transplant rate for any heart device in the world.