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News
New Technology Helps Patients Awaiting Transplants
A recent meeting of the International Society for Heart and Lung Transportation unveiled new technologies that could greatly assist people awaiting heart transplants. Presenter Robert Kormos, M.D., University of Pittsburgh (Penn.) Medical Center, advocates the development and use of a pump device that will address, and in some cases eliminate, heart failure.
Partnered with stem cell technology, the new pump would be smaller and minimally invasive and would allow a patient's heart to emerge strong enough to accept the implanted stem cells that would improve the heart's function and reduce or eliminate heart disease in the patient.
Kormos also suggests that a new approach for ventricular assist devices (VAD) is on the horizon for cardiac patients. While VAD usage gains increasing acceptance, a new way of thinking may change the way doctors use these assistive devices. Ventricular assist devices stabilize adults with heart disease, and act as a mechanical "bridge" for patients waiting for a donor heart. According to a Columbia University Medical Center study, patients in end-stage heart failure who received a VAD had more than double the one-year survival rate compared with patients who did not receive a device. However, Kormos challenges that VADs should be incorporated earlier in treatment.
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