ArticleCureus2026
Why Total Artificial Hearts Fail: Hemocompatibility, Infection, and the Biological Limits of Durable Cardiac Replacement.
Article in Cureus, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Total artificial hearts (TAHs) can restore hemodynamics in refractory biventricular failure, yet truly durable long-term support remains difficult to achieve. This editorial examines more than five decades of TAH development, beginning with the first human implantation in 1969, and highlights recurring constraints that continue to limit performance across platforms. These include hemocompatibility problems that can drive both thrombosis and bleeding, chronic infection risk from permanent percutaneous interfaces and biofilm formation, physiologic mismatch from loss of native autoregulation and cardio-renal/endocrine signaling, immune and inflammatory activation related to foreign surfaces and recurrent infection, and persistent challenges in patient selection. Together, these patterns suggest that replacing pump output alone does not replace the heart as an integrated endocrine, immunologic, and neurohumoral organ. Recognizing these limits is essential for realistic counseling and for directing innovation toward improved blood-contacting surfaces, fully implantable energy delivery, smarter closed-loop control, and hybrid biologic-mechanical strategies.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.