title: Mechanical circulatory support systems-future opportunities.
abstract: Fifty years of intensive experimental and clinical research have not permitted to reach the stage of the ideal artificial heart available on the shelf, the one the patient will forget. Nevertheless, in the same time frame, major advances have been observed in the technology and the clinical experience of various systems of mechanical circulatory support (MCS), for the treatment of the most severe forms of cardiac failure. These systems are now used routinely in patients awaiting transplantation who cannot receive a suitable donor heart, and in patients with reversible myocardial Lesions, who may recover an adequate native cardiac function. Eventually, in few selected cases, MCS systems will be the last major therapy and allow a prolonged survival with a reasonable quality of Life. This experience could be the ground for an important development of cardiac surgery in the domain of chronic cardiac failure.
authors.affiliation: Académie Nationale de Médecine, Paris, France. daniel.loisance@wanadoo.fr
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Loisance
mesh_terms: D006333:Heart Failure / Q000628:therapy*; D016027:Heart Transplantation; D006353:Heart-Assist Devices / Q000639:trends*; D006801:Humans; D018579:Patient Selection; D011474:Prosthesis Design