Adult VADs Help Kids' Hearts

Ventricular assist devices, normally employed with adult patients to help their hearts function by taking over a part of the workload, have been successfully used with children in recent years, new research shows.

A group of US researchers have studied the cases in which these assist devices were used to "bridge" the waiting period for children awaiting a heart transplant. They have found that the success rate of such cases has climbed up to over 80% in the past few years.

VAD devices have been used with success in adults waiting for a transplant, but there have been few data regarding the outcomes in young patients. In this study, researchers looked at the cases of 99 children, 67 boys and 32 girls, of average age 13, awaiting heart transplantation between January 1993 and December 2003. The children were given VAD support, which ranged in length from 1 to 465 days; 70 patients had long-term VAD support.

78% of these patients were suffering from cardiomyopathy and 22% had a congenital heart disease. Following the use of the devices, 78 patients survived the transplants. Researchers noted that children with cardiomyopathy had much better results using the devices than children who had congenital heart diseases.

Over the 10-year period of study, the percentage of success in using VADs was 77% but this percentage increased to 85% between 2000 and 2003. "Bridging over 85 percent of patients successfully is really encouraging", says Dr. Elizabeth D. Blume, of Children's Hospital, Boston, the study's lead author. The results were reported in the American Heart Association's journal "Circulation".

The use of these devices can save many lives of children who otherwise may die waiting for a heart donor.

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