ARTICLES ON HEART FAILURE AND CIRCULATORY DEVICES
Getting there first or getting there better? escalation of circulatory support before definitive ventricular assist
European multicentre study comparing strategies when the Impella CP® microaxial flow pump falls short: staying the course or escalating to the Impella 5.5®.
Temporary mechanical circulatory support: how and when?
Structured narrative review of the literature and expert consensus analyzing 52 studies published over a 24-year period on the indications for temporary mechanical circulatory support and the key elements of an optimal organizational model for clinical decision-making.
Acuity is not futility: reconsidering temporary mechanical circulatory support in LVAD candidates with right ventricular dysfunction
Study addressing a common clinical dilemma: in a candidate for a left ventricular assist device who also has right ventricular dysfunction, does the need for temporary mechanical circulatory support before implantation merely identify a sicker but potentially recoverable patient, or does it independently affect long-term prognosis?
VA-ECMO after congenital heart surgery: when to initiate it and when to discontinue it?
Retrospective single-centre study analysing 23 years of experience at a German referral centre with the use of veno-arterial extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (VA-ECMO) as circulatory support following congenital heart surgery.
RecoverHeart: estimating myocardial recovery before implanting a ventricular assist device
Multicenter development and external validation study, with a prominent contribution from the Utah group, proposing a calculator to estimate—before implantation—the individual probability of significant reverse remodeling in patients with advanced heart failure treated with a durable left ventricular assist device.
LVAD vs heart transplantation in middle-aged patients: which treatment should be considered first?
This study aimed to determine which strategy provides the greatest net survival benefit as the initial therapeutic option for middle-aged patients with advanced heart failure: heart transplantation or left ventricular assist device therapy.
DCD heart donation: Europe and the United States, two ways to widen the same pool
Observational, retrospective, multicenter study comparing donors, recipients, retrieval techniques, and outcomes of DCD heart transplantation in Europe and the United States.
Paragonix®, more than a premium polexpan cooler
Commentary on the GUARDIAN registry evaluating donor heart preservation outcomes during transport with different static cold storage–based systems.
ECMO as a bridge to heart transplantation. does extubating patients change anything?
Review of a US national database assessing heart transplantation outcomes among patients bridged with ECMO according to whether they were extubated at the time of transplant.
Changes in circulatory support before heart transplantation in the United States: the rise of Impella
A national observational study based on the UNOS database analyzing how the new heart transplant allocation system in the United States has reshaped the use of temporary mechanical circulatory support devices and its impact on early post-transplant survival.