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Detroit Pastor and Total Artificial Heart Recipient Receives Heart & Kidney Transplant

April 30, 2018

Syncardia Systems, LLC., a Picard Medical Company

DETROIT, MI — May 18, 2018 — When Pastor Johnnie Alexander was admitted to Henry Ford Hospital with end-stage heart failure last November, his doctors told him they needed to take immediate action because his days were numbered.

To save Alexander’s life, doctors implanted the SynCardia temporary Total Artificial Heart (TAH) to replace his failing heart and restore blood flow to his body while he waited for a matching donor heart to become available.

Several months of support with the TAH helped Alexander become stronger and healthier for transplant, and in March, he received the news he’d been waiting for: not only had a matching donor heart become available, but that same donor would also provide him with a new kidney to resolve his kidney disease.

Now, Pastor Alexander is out of the hospital and back at home — and he has some big plans for the future.

Read the full story on Fox 2 Detroit.

About SynCardia Systems, LLC

Headquartered in Tucson, Ariz., SynCardia manufactures the world’s only commercially approved total artificial heart. In clinical use for more than 35 years and with more than 1,800 implants, the SynCardia temporary Total Artificial Heart (TAH) is the most widely used and extensively studied TAH in the world.

By partnering with, training and supporting healthcare teams at more than 140 transplant hospitals and heart failure programs in more than 20 countries, SynCardia helps create better outcomes for critically ill adults and adolescents whose best chance at survival is total heart replacement. When a donor heart isn’t an available option, SynCardia provides a new heart without the wait for patients with end-stage heart failure affecting both sides of the heart (biventricular failure).