Aeson: A Robot Heart That Keeps You Alive
Every year thousands of patients wait for a donor heart that may never come in time. The Carmat Aeson is a fully implantable artificial heart that replaces the biological heart completely while the wait continues.
Photo source:
carmat-phrt.com
The Wait That Costs Lives
Heart failure is one of the leading causes of
death worldwide. For patients whose hearts have deteriorated beyond what
medication or partial support can manage, a transplant is the only solution.
The average waiting time for the most urgent cases is six months. That is six
months of a heart functioning at a fraction of its capacity, organs beginning
to fail from insufficient blood flow, and a body deteriorating faster than the
transplant list moves. The tools available to bridge that wait have always been
limited, loud, bulky, and confined to hospital settings. The Carmat Aeson
changes every one of those constraints.
Carmat Aeson: A Heart That Replaces, Not Supports
The Carmat Aeson is not a support device. It
does not assist a damaged heart or compensate for a failing ventricle. It
replaces the biological heart entirely. The device is inserted into the chest
through the same surgical approach used in a conventional heart transplant,
sutured to the large blood vessels and atria, and the chest is closed. What
remains visible is a single power cable exiting the abdomen, connecting the
implanted device to a battery pack carried in a shoulder bag. No external pump
on a trolley. No pneumatic drive. No machine tethered to a hospital wall. The
patient walks. The patient recovers. The patient waits for a donor heart with a
functioning circulatory system supporting the process.
The Engineering Inside the Chest
The Aeson is a hydraulic pump that generates a
pulsating blood flow that mimics the rhythm and pressure of a natural
heartbeat. Built-in sensors continuously monitor blood pressure and adjust
pumping capacity automatically in response to the body's changing demands.
Heart valves and an inner lining made from bovine heart tissue line the
blood-contacting surfaces, significantly reducing the risk of clot formation
that has historically made artificial heart technology dependent on strong
anticoagulant medication. The batteries powering the system provide six to
seven hours of autonomy before replacement. At night, the device connects to
mains power. The entire implanted unit weighs just over one kilogram and is
slightly larger than a biological heart, designed to fit within the chest
cavity of most adult patients.
What Recovery Actually Looks Like
Two patients implanted with the Aeson were
breathing independently from the day after surgery and transferred to standard
wards within days. Damage to the liver and kidneys caused by years of
insufficient blood flow began reversing as the artificial heart restored normal
circulation. One patient walked to the cafeteria within weeks of the procedure.
Across Europe, patients have lived with the Aeson for more than six months
while awaiting transplantation, with eleven having since received donor hearts.
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