26 November 2019, at the Heart Institute a team of specialists led by the Director of the Institute Professor Borys Todurov implanted a mini-mechanical heart to a 22-year-old patient from Mykolayiv with a diagnosis of dilated cardiomyopathy. The operation was successful.
All in all, this is the seventh implantation of mechanical heart at the Heart Institute and in general in Ukraine.
During the operation, Professor Borys Todurov was assisted by cardiac surgeons Gavril Kovtun, Anton Shpachuk and Andriy Patola, operating sister Natalia Kopylchuk, anesthesiologists Mykola Goncharenko, Maxim Goncharenko, perfusion specialist Oleksandr Druzhyna. The implantation was attended by Professor Peter Nemets (University Clinic in Brno, Czech Republic), a proctor of Medtronic.
The mechanical heart for this implantation was purchased at the governmental expense at no cost for the patient. The next stage is a donor heart transplant.
For information: the next-generation miniature mechanical heart features a compact control unit and a 4-hour battery, while the patient is carrying two removable batteries of the same capacity. That is, the patient can move independently of external energy supply for more than 12 hours.