SAN DIEGO, Oct. 20 (UPI) — Three patients with end-stage heart failure were successfully treated by doctors who implanted a left ventricular assist device, or LVAD, into the right atrium of their hearts to keep them alive.
An LVAD is device placed into the left ventricle of the heart to help blood flow through the body better. In the cases of these three patients, doctors sought to protect blood flow, as well as give circulatory support to the heart and replace part of its function.
“There is no standard of care for patients with biventricular failure, so using two LVADs to address this critical need gives patients another treatment option and hope,” said Dr. Eric Adler, director of cardiac transplant and mechanical circulatory support at the University of California San Diego Health, in a press release.
Although doctors employed a novel solution to keeping their patients alive, there are no right vetricular assist devices approved by the FDA. LVADs placed in the right ventricle can be detrimental to the proper function of the device and of the heart.
About 30 percent of patients treated with an LVAD require support in both ventricles, some patients are left partially treated.
“An alternative strategy would be to remove the heart completely and replace it with a total artificial heart, but this strategy does not allow for the failing heart to potentially recover, and there is the risk of the device malfunctioning,” said Dr. Victor Pretorius, surgical director of cardiac transplant and mechanical circulatory support at UC San Diego Health. “All three patients involved in the study were in desperate need of right-sided circulatory support. Our team placed an additional HeartWare HVAD, the smallest available LVAD, in the right atrium, the upper chamber of the heart, to provide right heart support.”
Two of the three patients have received heart transplants since the double-LVAD treatment, and the third is in good condition with the implants still in place, doctors reported. Four other patients have also been treated this way, though Adler said more long-term research is needed to determine the treatment’s efficacy.
The study is published in the Annals of Thoracic Surgery.
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