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Temporal Differences in Causes of Mortality After Left Ventricular Assist Device Implantation

Sunday, April 19, 2015

Submitted by

Arie Blitz

Source

Source Name: Annals of Thoracic Surgery

Source URL: http://www.annalsthoracicsurgery.org/article/S0003-4975(15)00148-4/abstract

Author(s)

John M. Stulak, Vivek Mehta, John A. Schirger, Keith D. Aaronson, Lyle D. Joyce, Richard C. Daly, Francis D. Pagani, Simon Maltais

The authors retrospectively analyzed the causes of death and their temporal relationship to surgery for close to 500 patients undergoing LVAD implantation at their institutions. The most common causes by time period were as follows: (1) early→cardiac (62%) and neurologic (21%); (2) between hospital dismissal and 6 months→neurologic (31%), cardiac (17%), and device-related (11%); (3) between 6 months and 1 year→neurologic (43%) and cardiac (22%); and (4) later than 1 year→neurologic (35%), cardiac (20%), and infection (15%). Identifying the predominant causes during each time interval may allow better honing of strategies to further improve outcomes.