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This University of Oxford Student’s Backpack Doesn’t Carry Books — It Keeps Her Heart Pumping

Syncardia Systems, LLC., a Picard Medical Company

Last year, Becca received the SynCardia temporary Total Artificial Heart after her heart had to be removed because of a cancerous cardiac tumor.

Last year, Becca received the SynCardia temporary Total Artificial Heart after her heart had to be removed because of a cancerous cardiac tumor.

LONDON, England — Oct. 21, 2018 — When 24-year-old Becca Henderson’s heart began to fail due to a cancerous cardiac tumor, her doctors knew they had to act fast in order to save her life.

The only way to remove the tumor was to also remove her heart and replace it with the SynCardia temporary Total Artificial Heart (TAH). Becca has been cancer-free since receiving the SynCardia TAH, and if she remains so until January 2019, she will be added to the heart transplant waiting list.

In the meantime, Becca is resuming her studies at the University of Oxford, but unlike the other students, her backpack won’t be full of books and papers — it will be carrying the driver that keeps her artificial heart pumping. Watch the video below for Becca’s full story.

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/embed/p06pb6z4/45916930

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).

The SynCardia temporary Total Artificial Heart (TAH-t) is a treatment option for cardiac transplant-eligible patients at risk of imminent death from biventricular failure.

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