The first artificial heart implant was carried out by Dr. Denton Cooley in Houston, Texas, in a 47-year-old man with intractable heart failure using the Liotta artificial heart developed by Domingo Liotta. This artificial heart was based upon the laboratory work of Dr. Michael DeBakey.
The electric total artificial heart was designed for permanent use and was completely implantable. Pneu¬matic total artificial hearts have not proved successful in small group studies. The Jarvik-7-100 artificial heart, a pneumatic system developed by the physician-engineer, Robert Jarvik, was tried in four patients as a permanent implant. All four patients died because of infectious, hematologic, and thromboembolic complications. One patient lived for 20 months. This device was first use by Dr. William DeVries who implanted the device in Barney Clarke in 1982. The presence of percutaneous drive lines causes infectious complications and the bulky external drive unit makes pneumatic artificial hearts unsui¬table for permanent implantation.
From 1970 to the present much investigational work has been done in the development of left ventricular assist devices as opposed to the development of a total artificial heart. This setback has delayed the development of the true total artificial heart. During the past decade, through a contract program established by the National Heart and Lung Institute, two research teams have been develop¬ing an electric total artificial heart that is undergoing clinical testing in selected areas in the United States.

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