Ask Dr. K: LVAD helps weak heart perform

DEAR DOCTOR K: I have severe heart failure. My doctor wants me to consider an LVAD. What do I need to know?

DEAR READER: Heart failure is a condition in which the heart cannot pump efficiently enough to meet the body’s need for blood. It needs help; it’s too weak to do the job. Medicines can strengthen the heart, but only to some degree. Ultimately, the only solution may be a heart transplant.

What about when medicines aren’t enough, and there isn’t a heart available to be transplanted? Increasingly, left ventricular assist devices (LVADs) are being used as a “bridge” to transplantation.

An LVAD is a battery-driven pump that is implanted in the chest. It pumps oxygen-rich blood around the body. In so doing, it helps perform some of the work that normally must be done entirely by the left ventricle.

An LVAD consists of a pump, a control system and an energy supply. The pump can be located inside or outside the body. The control system and energy supply remain outside the body.

Because of problems with the availability of organs for transplantation, 18 people die each day waiting for organ transplants. LVADs help keep some people alive until a donor heart becomes available.

Other heart failure patients may not qualify for a heart transplant because of medical conditions that disqualify them. For these patients, an LVAD may be used to lighten the extra burden on the heart and give them more time. With this additional support, the other conditions may improve enough for the person to become a transplant candidate.

Despite these potential risks, LVAD technology is continually improving. Fortunately, you have available to you today a treatment that was not available several decades ago. I wish you the best.