Heart maker Carmat to wait before next transplant: founder

By John Irish PARIS (Reuters) – French artificial heart maker Carmat will not carry out any more human transplants until it has determined the cause of the death of the first patient fitted with its device, one of the company’s co-founders said on Sunday. Carmat’s first patient, a 76-year-old man, died on March 2 in Paris, two and a half months after his operation. Before he was fitted with the device, the man was suffering from terminal heart failure, when the sick heart can no longer pump enough blood to sustain the body, and was said to have only a few weeks, or even days, to live. “Patients are still being chosen, but of course we will wait to hear a little more on the causes of the death of the first patient before transplanting another artificial heart,” Philippe Pouletty, director general of Truffle Capital, one of the main shareholders in Carmat told i Tele television.