Right heart failure: best treated by avoidance.
Right heart failure continues to affect our clinical success with left ventricular assist device support. The inability to consistently predict the probability of the onset of right heart dysfunction contributes to this problem. We have developed an aggressive approach to the management of these patients in an attempt to decrease the incidence of this condition, which continues to carry a very high operative mortality.
Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery and Transplantation, Alton Ochsner Medical Foundation, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA cvanmeter@ochsner.org
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Van Meter
D000465:Algorithms; D006333:Heart Failure / Q000628:therapy*; D006801:Humans