8.6 Total artificial heart
TAH implantation is an option in bridge-to-transplant patients with biventricular failure and provides results comparable to those of BiVAD support [187, 193, 197–202].
TAH implantation may be considered in patients with anatomical or other conditions that are not well served with 2 implantable LVADs or extracorporeal BiVAD such as in patients with small/non-dilated ventricles or patients requiring significant concomitant repair, e.g. restrictive/hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, cardiac tumour [203–206], complex postinfarction ventricular septal defect [207, 208] and congenital heart disease (CHD) with end-stage HF [209, 210].
TAH might have a lower stroke incidence compared to BiVAD, resulting in a trend towards better survival [193, 211].