Cardiac Pumps for End-Stage Heart Failure
Reported November 15, 2005
By Heather Kohn, Ivanhoe Health Correspondent
DALLAS (Ivanhoe Newswire) — New research shows heart pumps can significantly extend the lives of end-stage heart failure patients who are not candidates for heart transplants.
Investigators from Duke University School of Medicine in Durham, N.C., set out to determine how left ventricular assist devices (LVADs) impact survival in patients with end-stage heart failure. Doctors implant LVADs into patients’ abdomens and attach them to the left ventricle and the main blood vessel carrying blood from the heart to the body.
Lead author, Joseph G. Rogers, M.D., says, “We wanted to assess the impact of the Novacor LVAD in the treatment of patients with end-stage failure who were not candidates for transplantation.”
Researchers studied 18 patients with severe heart failure symptoms who received intravenous medications and 37 patients who received LVADs.
Results show those with end-stage heart failure who were treated with only medications had especially poor outcomes.
“The average survival was three months in the medication therapy arm of the trial,” Dr. Rogers says. “Patients with the LVAD had a significant improvement in survival. The LVAD reduced the risk of death by 50 percent at six and 12 months and extended the life span from almost three months to more than 10 months.”
Researchers say this study further shows heart technologies such as LVADs can save lives. Dr. Rogers adds: “We need to refine patient selection for these pumps and work to minimize the complications associated with mechanical heart technology. Further, we need to continue to focus on new strategies for treating end-stage heart failure, which has a survival rate so low that it rivals any cancer.”
SOURCE: Heather Kohn at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions in Dallas, Nov. 13 – Nov. 16, 2005