(Reuters) — The 2nd patient to receive an artificial heart made by French firm Carmat (FRA:CXT) is leading a normal life, including physical exercise, 8 months after his transplant, the 69-year-old man told weekly Le Journal du Dimanche.
Carmat is conducting trials of its heart device, designed as a permanent implant that can extend the life of patients without them having to wait for a human heart donor.
The company’s 1st transplant patient, a 76-year-old man, died in March last year, 2½ months after his operation.
The 2nd patient, who has asked not to be named, was discharged from the hospital in January in western France.
“I have completely recovered. I can walk, I can get up and I can bend down 10 to 15 times a day without any difficulty," he told the paper in an interview published yesterday. "In fact, I have never felt so good."
The patient, who spoke for 2 hours without losing his breath, also said he does repair work at home and physical exercise including shooting and cycling, according to the newspaper.
The patients chosen for Carmat’s artificial heart trials suffer from terminal heart failure. The company plans to operate on 4 patients in its trial phase, and it said last year it had made changes following the death of the 1st patient due to a short circuit in the device.
In an interview published on Friday in western French daily Presse Ocean, Daniel Duveau, 1 of the surgeons who operated on the 2nd Carmat patient, said the next 2 transplants should be scheduled in the coming months.
