What are the risks associated with LVADs?
A LVAD (Left Ventricular Assist Device) can keep a failing heart pumping -- but it used to carry a significant risk of stroke. Improvements have whittled that risk down, but there are still dangers. Watch this video with cardiothoracic surgeon C...
Transcript
In the past, stroke was probably the major and most concerning risk because of clot forming
as blood passed over the artificial surfaces of an artificial device. [MUSIC PLAYING]
The risks associated with ventricular assist devices and all forms of mechanical assistance
have primarily to do with the interaction between blood and artificial surfaces. So in the past, stroke was probably
the major and most concerning risk because of clot forming as blood passed over the artificial surfaces
of an artificial device. That part of it has become much better controlled with improvements in the surfaces themselves
and with the improvement in our understanding of what medicines need to be used to minimize clot formation. But these are still artificial devices.
And we're learning new issues that interfere with elements of the blood. So the latest generation of pumps of assist devices
that's getting very wide usage, instead of being a pump like a pusher plate that physically moves blood around,
it's a rotating propeller, you could think of it, an axial flow pump very much like a propeller.
These have a whole new set of more subtle but very important coagulation abnormalities that have
to do with the impact of that propeller on elements in the blood. So there's always something.
And we will keep minimizing the risk as we learn more about it. But there are still issues anytime you circulate blood through artificial surfaces.
circulatory system
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