???aural:Bildanfang??????Großansicht des Bildes???The new, fully implantable artificial heart: Reinheart © Armin Kühn???aural:Bildende???

A completely implantable artificial heart developed in Europe for the first time in more than 20 years has been successful in an animal trial. The new artificial heart called "ReinHeart" was developed at the Clinic for Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery under the lead responsibility of Prof. Dr. Reiner Körfer at the Heart and Diabetes Centre North Rhine-Westphalia in Bad Oeynhausen.

The Department of Applied Medical Engineering at the Helmholtz-Institute of the RWTH Aachen University also contributed to the project. The new cardiac pump is lined with a biocompatible polyurethane internal surface, 90x85 mm in size and weighing less than 1,000 gr. Based on the model of the human heart, it has a right-hand and left-hand ventricle, each with a cardiac output of 60 ml and equipped with four mechanical cardiac valves.

A fully wear-free linear drive generates 70 newtons of power for the pump's required delivery rate. The drive uses less than 20 watts. The artificial heart that was implanted into a calf in Louvain, Belgium by Dr. Michiel Morshuis and Dr. Sebastian Schulte Eistrup on 21 January 2009 performed excellently right from the start. After more than an hour, in which the artificial heart had demonstrated a regular and stable work rate with a cardiac output of up to six litres, the trial was completed successfully.

ReinHeart's development is coordinated by Dr. Sebastian Schulte Eistrup and Dr. Michiel Morshuis, Bad Oeynhausen, working in close cooperation with the research team headed by Dr. Ing. Ulrich Steinseifer and Dipl.-Ing. Thomas Finocchiaro from the RWTH Aachen University.Further information: http://www.hdz-nrw.de/en/