Left ventricular-assist devices (LVAD) are the need of the hour. Day by day as the number of heart failure patients increases, the need for a heart transplant and heart devices also increases.
There are millions of people across the world who are suffering from heart failure and require a heart transplant, but the insufficient availability of donor’s hearts makes it difficult for the patient to live a healthy life.
As technology and medical science are advancing, there are solutions to this problem as well. The left ventricular assisted device is one of the bioengineered devices that support the heart of an advanced-stage heart failure patient and replaces the need for a heart transplant to some extent.
Devices like LVAD help the heart of advanced-stage heart failure patients to pump blood efficiently and circulate the blood throughout the body. It assists in improving the blood flow into the body which helps the other organs to function properly.
There are several benefits of LVAD such as it increases life expectancy and quality of life. Along with that it also helps to decrease the unwanted symptoms of heart failure that may affect the patient.
We offer such devices to provide a better life to heart failure patients and also provide free second opinions from the best cardiologists in India.
LVAD works by pumping the blood in the left ventricle of the heart directly to the aorta which eventually takes the blood to other organs of the body. It includes a pump and battery which are the two main parts of the device. This pump exerts pressure and efficiently forces the blood to travel into the body, whereas the battery provides the electric impulse to do so.
There could be several reasons for an advanced-stage heart failure patient to get an LVAD implant, which includes unstable patients who cannot wait for a donor’s heart for transplantation, being old enough, other medical condition, which is hindering the surgery process, other unsuccessful heart surgeries, high body weight and experiencing organ rejection, etc.
In all these cases, LVAD is a better treatment option. Hence scientists and medical engineers work together to make LVAD more effective. Multiple studies are going on to improve the functioning of LVAD, one such study is the momentum 3 trial.
Continue reading to know more about the objective and result of the trial.
The objective of the Momentum 3 trial
The main objective of this trial is to find out the five-year outcomes in the momentum 3 randomized trial of patients with fully magnetically levitated versus axial flow left ventricular assist devices.
Before we get into the details of the studies, let us first discuss the type of LVADs.
There are two types of FDA-approved LVAD devices namely, pulsative and non-pulsative which is also known as continuous flow LVAD. The pulsative LVAD works similarly to the natural heart in a rhythmic manner, whereas continuous flow LVAD consists of a motor that ejects blood at a fixed rate from the heart to the body.
Continuous flow LVADs are further divided into two types, which are centrifugal flow LVAD and axial flow LVAD. They are named according to the way the blades rotate into the pump. Both of these help the heart to pump blood into the blood efficiently.
Just like any other medical treatment, LVAD also comes with some complications. Some of the commonly observed complications are thrombosis, stroke, GI bleeding, and right ventricular failure. Hence there was a debate going on regarding which type of magnetically levitated LVAD has better benefits over such complications.
This study revolves around a similar idea and to analyze it a randomized trial was conducted. The researchers randomly assigned either of the LVAD devices to advanced-stage heart failure patients. Around a thousand patients were assigned LVAD devices irrespective of the intended goal to use them. The primary endpoint was survival after 2 years of implantation without disabling stroke or removal of the device due to malfunction.
Conclusion
In the analysis after two years, it was found that 76.9% of the centrifugal flow LVAD group of patients and 64.8% of the axial flow LVAD group patients were alive, free from stroke or any malfunction removal of the device.
Device replacements were less common in centrifugal flow LVAD patients than in axial flow LVAD patients. Even the side effects and complications were less commonly observed in centrifugal flow LVAD patients.
Hence it can be concluded that a fully magnetically levitated centrifugal-flow left ventricular assist device was associated with a less frequent need for pump replacement than an axial-flow device and was better in terms of survival without disabling stroke or removal of the device due to malfunction in patients with advanced heart failure.
Heart failure cases in India
Just like any other country, India is also facing difficulties in providing heart transplants to many heart failure patients. There are thousands of people who require heart transplant but can’t get it due to many factors. One of the major factors in not getting a heart transplant is the unavailability of donors’ hearts. Even if people donate their organs, the heart is one of the least donated organs.
Some patients cannot get heart transplants due to other medical conditions etc. All these issues become major when we look at the number of heart patients in India.
Heart failure can be caused by coronary heart disease, hypertension, obesity, diabetes, and other heart diseases. To get an approximate number of heart failure patients, we can estimate the prevalence of heart diseases. There are around 1.5 million to 4.5 million people who are suffering from different heart diseases. All these patients can be potential heart failure patients who require a heart transplant.
It is almost impossible to provide a donor heart for every heart failure patient. In many cases the patient cannot get a heart transplant done due to age, overall medical health, advanced stages of Myocarditis or Dilated Cardiomyopathy, body weight or graft rejection, etc.
Hence it becomes much more important to get these patients another treatment option that can help the weakened heart of the patient to function properly. Heart devices like LVAD assist in diseases of the heart of the patient to pump blood throughout the body and let the patient live a more peaceful life.
What can we do for you?
Complex Treatments provides devices like left ventricular assist devices that help advanced-stage heart failure patients. People across our country and abroad are reaching out to get devices. LVAD works wonders for many people. These kinds of diseases should not be ignored as they could be fatal.
Several treatment options are available in today’s modern world as new inventions and devices are being used to provide a better life to patients. We as the team of Complex Treatments work in a way to offer many years of healthy life to the patients. LVAD is one such device that we propose for advanced-stage heart failure patients.
Contact us to know more about our services and devices.