The patient, an Australian man in his 40s, lived with his fully functional heart implant long enough to be discharged from the hospital.

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.

An Australian man has become the first person in the world to be discharged from hospital with a total artificial heart implant, according to a recent report by The Guardian.

The patient, a man in his 40s from New South Wales, received the BiVACOR Total Artificial Heart (TAH) during a six-hour procedure at St. Vincent's Hospital

Graphic warningThis machine has enabled an Australian man with severe heart failure to be the first person in the world to leave hospital with an artificial heart transplant.A warning that the images coming up show the surgery.

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.

The recipient underwent a six-hour operation in November, surviving on the artificial heart for over 100 days until a donor heart transplant could occur in early March.