Phoenix hospital performs historic artificial heart transplant on Tempe resident

PHOENIX — Banner Health’s University Medical Center Phoenix made history in August, being the third hospital in the world to successfully implant the BiVACOR Total Artificial Heart in a human, according to a Friday company press release.

Stephan Crudup, 51, of Tempe, received the artificial transplant to address his severe heart failure. He then underwent a heart transplant after living with the temporary solution for nearly a month and made a full recovery.

“I’m thriving, surviving and living better than I was with my sick heart,” Crudup said in a release. “It’s astounding to be a part of such incredible medical research, and I’m grateful to the amazing care team that’s helped me here at Banner.”

Arizona patient is one of five in nation receiving artificial heart device

Crudup is one of five patients who will receive the BiVOCAR Total Artificial Heart as part of a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) feasibility study tasked with ensuring the device’s safety and efficacy.

The Banner – University Medicine Advanced Heart Failure Program, under the guidance of Dr. Francisco Arabia, achieved the feat and more than 120 people were trained nationally for the overall study.

Arabia, who has been working with artificial hearts for over 30 years, said technology prior to this breakthrough was only used as a bridge and could not prevent long-term deterioration.

“The important role of the artificial heart eventually will be that it can offer an alternative to transplantation,” Arabia told KTAR News 92.3 FM on Friday. “We can go in and place an artificial heart on a permanent basis, or a very long-term basis.”

The BiVACOR Total Artificial Heart has an electromagnetic titanium core that can generate blood flow and a pulse without valves, as Arabia said it instead has one internal moving part. The heart’s magnetic levitation technology is comparable to that of high-speed trains, according to Banner Health.

Since 2020, Arabia’s team has completed 137 heart transplants. The combined experience made the actual surgery easier to carry out, but the new device was 10-15 years in the making. The BiVACOR Total Artificial Heart progressed through a simulator phase and animal testing before finally being approved for human trials in July.

Arabia said that an additional five patients will be included in the testing once the FDA determines if the initial trials were successful or not.

“You can imagine the number of patients that we can provide more years of quality life,” Arabia said. “The important thing is not to keep patients alive, but to provide good quality of life. If we can do that, that would be a major step forward in healthcare and technology. And it’s just the beginning.”

Heart failure is actively affecting at least 26 million people worldwide and 6.2 million adults in the United States, according to Banner Health. Despite the alarmingly high numbers, only 6,000 heart transplant procedures are conducted per year.

The U.S. National Institutes of Health estimated that upwards of 100,000 patients could be immediate recipients of the milestone heart device once it is commercially available.

Learn more about BiVACOR technology here.

KTAR News’ Kate Ourada contributed to this report.

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