Long-term Safety of Minimally Invasive Left Ventricular Assist Device Discontinuation for Myocardial Recovery.

BACKGROUND

Left ventricular assist devices (LVADs) play important roles in advanced heart failure (HF) management. In patients who experience myocardial recovery, the LVAD is often explanted via a resternotomy, which may negatively impact the newly recovered heart. We describe a case-series of LVAD discontinuation using a minimally invasive approach, focusing on thromboembolic phenomenon and infection rates in long-term follow-up.

METHODS

Our study is a single-center, retrospective case series of patients with myocardial recovery after mechanical unloading with an LVAD. Patients underwent outflow graft ligation through a minimally invasive approach with driveline excision. Postdiscontinuation, patients obtained serial transthoracic echocardiograms for a minimum of 6 months and followed with our heart failure specialist.

RESULTS

All 7 recovery patients had nonischemic cardiomyopathy and included 4 women (57%). Mean age was 44.3 ± 15.6 years. Median LVAD support duration was 454 (interquartile range, 326 to 1096) days. Intensive care unit length of stay and total length of stay were 3.4 ± 1.9 days and 6.3 ± 2.3 days, respectively. Blood transfusion rate was 0.86 ± 1.1 units. At a median follow-up of 874 (interquartile range, 864 to 1007) days, no patients developed thromboembolic phenomena despite use of aspirin only for prophylaxis. One patient experienced driveline infection, who had persistent driveline infection before procedure.

CONCLUSIONS

This minimally invasive approach for LVAD discontinuation through outflow graft ligation, driveline removal, and LVAD stoppage in setting of myocardial recovery avoids resternotomy risks. Despite leaving the LVAD in situ, there was no risk of thromboembolism or infection associated with residual hardware.