For decades, replacing a failing human heart meant waiting—often desperately—for a donor. But in a hospital in Sydney, that paradigm has begun to shift. Last November, surgeons at St Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney implanted the BiVACOR Total Artificial Heart in a critically ill patient.

An Australian man lived for 100 days with an artificial titanium heart while he awaited a donor transplant, the longest period to date of someone with the technology.

An Australian man in his forties has become the first person in the world to leave hospital with an artificial heart made of titanium. The device is used as a stopgap for people with heart failure who are waiting for a donor heart, and previous recipients of this type of artificial heart had remained in US hospitals while it was in place.