title: The potential to avoid heart transplantation in children: outpatient bridge to recovery with an intracorporeal continuous-flow left ventricular assist device in a 14-year-old.
abstract: Pediatric mechanical circulatory support has evolved considerably in the past decade. Improvements in device design and availability have led to increased short-, medium-, and long-term support options for pediatric patients with heart failure. Most pediatric mechanical circulatory support is utilized as a bridge to transplant and as a bridge to recovery in patients with temporary etiologies of heart failure (i.e., myocarditis). Described herein is our recovery program, and we report our experience as an independent pediatric ventricular assist device program with an intracorporeal continuous-flow device employed as an out-of-hospital bridge to recovery for a child with end-stage chronic heart failure.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, Lillie Frank Abercrombie Section of Pediatric Cardiology, Baylor College of Medicine, Texas Children's Hospital, Houston, TX 77054, USA. lowry@bcm.edu
authors.forename: Adam W
authors.initials: AW
authors.lastname: Lowry
authors.forename: Iki
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Adachi
authors.forename: Igor D
authors.initials: ID
authors.lastname: Gregoric
authors.forename: Aamir
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Jeewa
authors.forename: David L S
authors.initials: DL
authors.lastname: Morales
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D002908:Chronic Disease; D006333:Heart Failure / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000601:surgery / Q000628:therapy*; D016027:Heart Transplantation; D006353:Heart-Assist Devices; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011474:Prosthesis Design; D020127:Recovery of Function; D013997:Time Factors; D016896:Treatment Outcome; D016277:Ventricular Function, Left