The First Total Artificial Heart Implant in New England Performed at Brigham

File photo. Keith Brofsky/Thinkstock(BOSTON) -- Last February the Brigham and Women’s Hospital performed the first total artificial heart implant in New England for James Carelli, a 66-year-old retired high school teacher with a cardiac senile amyloidosis, which can cause heart failure, according to The Boston Globe. The procedure had not been revealed until Thursday.

This surgery is intended as a bridge until a human heart transplant can be found.  Carelli’s condition has improved since the surgery, and Carelli said, “It’s not a difficult choice when you want to live, and I wanted to live.”

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