Reinventing the displacement left ventricular assist device in the continuous-flow era: TORVAD the first toroidal-flow left ventricular assist device

摘要

Over the past two decades, left ventricular assist device (LVAD) support has emerged as standard therapy for adult patients with advanced, life-threatening heart failure. First-generation pulsatile devices have been replaced by rotary blood pumps that continuously unload the failing left ventricle. So-called continuous-flow LVADs (CF-LVADs) are smaller, more reliable, durable, and energy efficient, and less traumatic to implant than first-generation devices. Survival of 80% at one year and 70% at two years has been widely achieved (1). However, CF-LVADs have introduced a new, non-pulsatile physiology in which blood encounters supraphysiologic shear stress, and as a result, unforeseen consequences have emerged.