Early Experience of Implantation of a New Pulsatile Total Artificial Heart (TAH) in the Pig

The shortage of donor hearts the physiological impact of pulsatile perfusion have driven technical innovation research efforts to create positive displacement total artificial heart that can produce pulsatile flow has a reasonable size for long-term assist in chronic heart failure. Such product is the Scandinavian Real Heart 8 (SRH8); new pulsatile total artificial heart. We here describe the basic principles of the surgical and anesthesiologic techniques we have developed for implantation of the latest prototype of this device.