artificial heart pilot trial update , page-3

Pilot Trial Update 20 August 2003
Wednesday August 20th, 2003

Medical investigators today provided a progress report on the Pilot Trial of Ventracor’s ‘artificial heart’ being conducted at The Alfred hospital in Melbourne.

As foreshadowed in an announcement on 13 August 2003, the patient who received the first implant of the VentrAssist™ left ventricular assist system (LVAS) on 28 June 2003 was discharged home from hospital late yesterday.

The patient will continue to form part of the trial and will require ongoing monitoring by the medical investigators.
Chief Medical Investigator, Professor Don Esmore said: “While ongoing monitoring will be required as with a heart transplant patient, the quality of life for this patient has been substantially enhanced.”

The Pilot Trial evaluates the safety of the VentrAssist™ LVAS in up to 10 patients.

The trial results will be based on outcomes from all patients. While individual outcomes are very important, it is the accumulation of all data on the safety of the device that will decide the outcome of the trial.


For more information, please contact:

Michael Spooner
Ventracor Limited
Managing Director & CEO
02 9406 3088

Cheers,

Fig Jam