Outcomes for Left Ventricular Assist Device Usage with End-Stage Renal Disease
In April 2022, researchers from Queens Hospital Center (Internal Medicine), Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (Internal Medicine), Kettering Medical Center (Internal Medicine), Rawal Institute of Health Services (Medicine), Weill Cornell Medicine (Cardiology/Medicine), and Queens Hospital Center (Cardiology) examined the outcomes of end-stage renal disease (ESRD) patients requiring a left ventricular assist device (LVAD) as destination therapy (DT) or bridge to transplant (BTT). The complete manuscript by Sofia Lakhdar, Mahmoud Nassar, Chandan Buttar, Laura M. Guzman Perez, Shahzad Akbar, Anoosh Zafar, and Most Munira can be found in Cureus. The summary of their systematic review is detailed below.
The standard of care for patients with end-stage heart failure is heart transplantation, although there is a significant lack of donor's hearts compared to the number of recipients in need. For these patients awaiting transplantation requiring destination therapy (DT) or bridge to transplant (BTT), left ventricular assist devices (LVADs) are commonly used. However, renal dysfunction has been associated with a reduced survival rate after implantation of LVAD, especially in those with ESRD at the time of implantation.