Comparative Studies of Axial Ventricular Assist Devices (VAD) and the Effect of Outflow Cannulation

Congestive heart failure has reached epidemic proportions in the United States with more than 5.7 million patients suffering from it annually ( 1). Due to the limited availability of donor hearts, patients in their late stage heart failure who may require cardiac transplantation are dying while waiting for a matched heart. Mechanical circulatory support devices (MCS), such as ventricular assist devices (VAD), are utilized as a bridge to transplantation, and recently as destination therapy for extending the life of these patients. Continuous-flow VAD offer a surgical advantage over older generation pulsatile-flow VAD due to their compact design; however, due to the high RPM these VADs are operated with and the non-physiological blood flow patterns they generates, VADs are burdened with high incidence of thromboembolic events, and antiplatelet/anticoagulation regimens are mandated for the device recipients.