Heart Failure Treatment News
Recent Stories
Jan 19, 2012
The Herald Chronicle
- Winchester resident is the first in Franklin County to receive a Ventricular Assist Device (VAD), after the recommendation of St. Thomas cardiologist and heart failure specialist, Dr. Don Chomsky, who recently provided this newspaper with information on this latest state-of-the-art device.
Jan 8, 2012
Bluefield Daily Telegraph
- This story was important enough for Joe Kessler’s wife to type and hand-deliver to the Bluefield Daily Telegraph. For the past eight months, Donna Kessler has been her husband’s constant companion. Even when he rang the bell for the Salvation Army last month, she sat in the car and watched Joe’s joy of volunteering.
Dec 28, 2011
FOX Toledo Online
- If you need an organ transplant, there's no guarantee one will be available for you.
Dec 28, 2011
WFAA
- Five million people in the United States suffer from congestive heart failure. It's a serious condition where the heart can't pump enough blood through your body.
Dec 22, 2011
CBS Miami
- A Florida high school athlete on a heart assist device, and awaiting a heart and kidney transplant, will be going home Friday just in time to celebrate the holidays with his family.
Dec 17, 2011
Toledo Blade
- James Howell can get around on his own this holiday season after two area surgeons replaced his failed heart with an artificial blood pump in what appears to be the first such surgery in northwest Ohio.
Dec 16, 2011
WTOL-TV
- For those waiting on a heart transplant, a new mechanical heart pump known as the LVAD can give the patient a new lease on life.
Dec 1, 2011
AARP Bulletin
- "My heart was failing. I was dying. It was as simple as that," Bill Sowden, 80, remembers. "They told me I had four to six weeks to live. I began to put my affairs in order. I even arranged for the music I wanted performed at my funeral." That was more than five years ago.
Nov 28, 2011
Discoveries Magazine
- More than 5 million Americans are afflicted with congestive heart failure. Of these, 70,000 will have advanced heart failure that cannot be treated with conventional therapies. For these patients, the one-year survival rate is less than 50 percent and is associated with an extremely poor quality of life.
Nov 21, 2011
HealthCanal.com (PA)
- When the Bell family gathers Thursday to give thanks, they will add the doctors and nurses at the University of Rochester Medical Center to the list of blessings received this year. For the first time in six months, patriarch Kyle Bell will be at the table, following life-saving care for his failing heart.
Oct 5, 2011
Today’s THV
- Legendary football coach, Jimmy "red" Parker, 79, has experienced some challenges in his life. The former coach of Citadel in South Carolina, Clemson, Arkansas, A&M, and more has faced some worthy opponents.
Aug 3, 2011
PR Newswire
- Texas Children's Hospital is the nation's first pediatric hospital to both surgically implant and later explant a mechanical ventricular assist device (VAD), inside the chest of a teen with chronic heart failure as a bridge to recovery, avoiding heart transplantation.
Jul 25, 2011
Riverhead Local
- Former Riverhead councilman Jim Lull may not have a pulse, but he's feeling better than he's felt in a very long time.
Jul 21, 2011
The 33 News Dallas
- The Space Shuttle Atlantis touched down Thursday morning at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida just a few hours before 77 year old Jim Myers checked out of his room at The Heart Hospital Baylor-Plano.
Jun 28, 2011
Sign On San Diego
- Patients 70 years of age or older can have good functional recovery, survival and quality of life for at least two years after undergoing left ventricular assist device (LVAD) therapy for heart failure, according to the results of a clinical study at Sharp Memorial Hospital.
Jun 16, 2011
Cardiovascular Business
- Advanced age (older than 70 years) should not be used as an independent contraindication when selecting a heart failure (HF) patient for left ventricular assist device (LVAD) therapy at experienced community hospital centers, based on results of a single-center study in the June 21 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
Jun 11, 2011
Journal of the American College of Cardiology
- The primary objective of this study was to determine outcomes in left ventricular assist device (LVAD) patients older than age 70 years.
May 9, 2011
The Arizona Republic
- Kevin Lausch couldn't speak because of the tubes in his throat, so he reached for his wife's hand and, using his finger, slowly wrote "p-r-i-e-s-t" in her palm.
Apr 27, 2011
STLtoday.com
- A swim in the ocean off a beach in the Virgin Islands topped Thomas Nichols' bucket list.
Apr 14, 2011
News Tribune
- Life comes one beat at a time for heart transplant patients before and after surgery.
Feb 19, 2011
KPTM
- A technology for patients experiencing heart failure is available in Omaha. The device allows more people to be eligible for heart transplants.
Feb 9, 2011
Austin News
- It's been three years now since surgeons began using a new heart pump inside patients' bodies and they couldn't be happier with the results.
Feb 8, 2011
Sacremento Press
- For many people Valentine’s Day is a holiday filled with love, romance and affection. It’s a time for meaningful cards, flowers and sentimental gifts. But this year, one Sacramento Valentine received a gift like no other. He received the gift of life – a new heart.
Jan 27, 2011
Omaha World-Herald
- Two years ago heart disease left Gary Smith so weak that he struggled to walk from his recliner to the bathroom.
Jan 21, 2011
DukeHealth.org
- Sometimes it pays to be a zebrafish. You could stab a zebrafish in the heart, and that zebrafish would grow new heart muscle and keep on swimming.
Dec 10, 2010
KFSN-TV Fresno, CA
- A new medical procedure is available to Valley residents who suffer from heart disease. A heart pump is improving life for patients waiting for a new heart.
Sep 20, 2010
Madison Journal Today
- You might say Patsy Dudley and her husband Joe have a new lease on life, thanks to one of the wonders of modern technology.
Aug 30, 2010
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
- Melissa Justice was on the operating table. In minutes, surgeons would open her chest to remove her heart. She'd been told she would die without the donor heart that awaited.
Aug 21, 2010
The Express (Lockhaven, PA)
- Ron Spotts, a lifelong resident of Beech Creek, enjoys skiing, working on the house, gardening and going to Penn State football games with his family.
Jul 15, 2010
News 14 Charlotte, NC
- A 21-year-old North Carolina man has a new lease on life thanks to a new heart implant device. Sivinty Puth received the Heart Mate, a Ventricular Assist Device, not a moment too soon.
Jun 7, 2010
U.Va. Health System
- An acute cardiomyopathy sends a new mom to the brink of death. A Redskins fan with heart failure is sidelined by his illness. A heart condition keeps a hunting enthusiast from the activity he loves most.
May 26, 2010
MSNBC - TodayShow.com
- Emotionally, college student Ally Smith’s heart told her to marry Mike Babineaux. But medically, it told her to push Mike away, because she wouldn’t survive to enjoy a full life with him.
May 13, 2010
The Dallas Morning News
- Technically speaking, Al Senter died almost two years ago. But there he was last week, undeniably alive, climbing up and down a ladder, trimming the bushes around his Flower Mound home.
May 12, 2010
The Oregonian
- By the time X-rays uncovered the cause of Nakia Hentz’ pain and weakness, her heart had swelled to three times its normal size.
May 9, 2010
Jamaica Observer (Jamaica, W.I.)
- THE Amityville Horror movie is an all-time favourite of Jamaicans. But one Jamaican has prevented what could have been horror for an Amityville, Long Island man by performing successful life-saving heart surgery on him.
Apr 30, 2010
WCSC-TV (CBS) - Charleston, SC
- Asha Wilson sat in the hotel she's staying in remembering the pain of the last few months.
Apr 20, 2010
Newswise
- Federal approval for an alternative therapy to heart transplantation led to a new lease on life for a UT Southwestern Medical Center patient who suffered from heart failure for nearly a decade.
Apr 16, 2010
Newsday
- Arthur Plowden has become a pioneering patient for a new kind of heart pump that his doctors say offers lifesaving technology for people running low on options.
Apr 12, 2010
Austin American-Statesman
- After tying the laces on one shoe, Keith Groscost of Cedar Park had to rest before he could tie the other laces. Walking left him breathless. And he used oxygen while sleeping. Groscost had heart failure, and the doctors told him that at 79, he was too old for a transplant.
Apr 10, 2010
Roseville Press-Tribune (CA)
- Robert Cooley used only two sick days during his whole 37-year teaching career.
Mar 19, 2010
South Wales Argus (UK)
- AFTER spending almost four years waiting for a new heart, Stewart Rankin is hoping an operation today to fit an artificial heart pump will make the wait a little easier.
Mar 16, 2010
Carroll County News
- Diagnosed with Stage 4 heart failure, unable to tie his shoes, walk across the room, or bend over, options for 70-year-old Jim Chilson seemed slim.
Mar 11, 2010
Washington Observer-Reporter
- The Food and Drug Administration last month approved a heart-assist device investigated for several years at Allegheny General Hospital as a destination therapy for patients with advanced heart failure who do not qualify for heart transplantation.
Mar 9, 2010
KENS5.com (TX)
- There’s new hope for thousands of patients suffering from heart failure. It’s a new implanted pump that keeps the blood moving and vastly improves the quality of life.
Mar 3, 2010
Today's THV
- Now some patients with heart failure have a choice between a heart transplant and living the rest of their life with a mechanical assist device that can be replaced when needed.
Feb 22, 2010
WBBM780
- A Chicago-area hospital today is celebrating the success of a life-saving device. WBBM's Regine Schlesinger reports the mechanical heart pump offers gravely-ill heart patients a new chance at life.
Feb 18, 2010
KSFY (SD)
- Not only is this National Heart Month, it is also National Cardiac Rehabilitation Week. Cardiac Rehab involves a closely monitored exercise program after a coronary procedure. We met a young woman in Aberdeen who had just started as a physical therapist in Avera St. Luke's Cardiac Rehab Unit, when out of the blue, ended up needing open heart surgery and going through the 12 week program herself.
Feb 17, 2010
HealthCanal
- A revolutionary heart assist technology investigated for several years at Allegheny General Hospital (AGH) has been approved by the FDA forpatients with advanced heart failure who do not qualify for heart transplantation. Called the Thoratec® HeartMate II® Left Ventricular Assist System (LVAS), the device is now available as “destination therapy” – or long-term treatment for those patients.
Feb 17, 2010
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
- The FDA has approved a new technology that was tested at Allegheny General Hospital for patients with advanced heart failure who do not qualify for a transplant.
Feb 16, 2010
NJ.com
- When Carter Blankenship agreed to have a battery-operated device implanted in his chest, he had no idea he would be making medical history.
Feb 12, 2010
The Columbus Dispatch
- Bob Jiles believes in accepting what he cannot change. The 76-year-old Dayton man was suffering from heart failure and knew he was living his final days when his cardiologist sat him down about a month ago and told him he might have a shot at more time.
Feb 11, 2010
The Badger Herald
- The United States Food and Drug Administration recently approved a newly developed heart pump tested in a clinical trial at the University of Wisconsin.
Feb 10, 2010
PhysOrg.com
- Although they have neither a pulse nor a measurable blood pressure, people with advanced heart failure lived longer and felt better when implanted with a new small pump that circulates their blood, according to UW Health heart experts whose patients took part in a recent clinical trial.
Feb 8, 2010
My Fox DC
- Thousands have been left in the dark this week due to the snow storm. For one Maryland mother, having electricity literally means the difference between life and death.
Feb 4, 2010
The Patriot News (PA)
- The FDA has approved the HeartMate II heart assist device for long-term use in patients with advanced heart failure who do not qualify for heart transplants. The Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center has been instrumental in trials that led to the decision, according to hospital officials.
Feb 1, 2010
Health News Digest
- (HealthNewsDigest.com) - COLUMBUS, Ohio) - Thanks to some remarkable technology, patients at Ohio State University Medical Center are choosing to take themselves off of the heart transplant waiting list and are living to tell about it. With the help of a ventricular assist device (VAD), or heart pump, in some cases these heart failure patients can live a full, active life without ever needing a new heart.
Jan 28, 2010
Fox 2 Now (via AP) (MO)
- ST. LOUIS (AP) — Barnes-Jewish Hospital says a recent FDA decision means it can expand the use of a device designed to help heart failure patients survive long-term.
Jan 27, 2010
Voice of America
- The World Health Organization says heart disease kills about 17 million people every year and that it will become the leading cause of death in developing countries. But now, there is some hope. A new device is being marketed that could save countless lives.
Jan 27, 2010
NBC San Diego
- A locally tested device is offering a new option for severe heart-failure patients.
Jan 27, 2010
San Diego Union Tribune
- People who suffer from late-stage heart failure but don’t qualify for a transplant now have a new option: a cell-phone-size heart pump tested at Sharp Memorial Hospital in San Diego.
Jan 23, 2010
ABC World News
- You might never know by looking at him, but 78-year-old Richard Stowe has a mechanical pump inside his chest, doing most of the work of his weakened heart.
Jan 17, 2010
Wilton Villager (CT)
- It was the kind of complaint any mother of a 16-year-old has heard a hundred times: "Mom, I don't feel well."
Jan 12, 2010
Washington Post
- It was the kind of complaint any mother of a 16-year-old has heard a hundred times: "Mom, I don't feel well."
Jan 12, 2010
Penn Live (Patriot News) (PA)
- The decision to have a left ventricle assist device installed in his body was an easy one for Charles Shade.
Dec 16, 2009
The Wall Street Journal
- Thousands of heart-failure patients die each year because they aren't able to get a transplanted organ. Now, many medical experts are touting the benefits of a new mechanical pump that gives a patient's own heart a new lease on life.
Dec 3, 2009
Local News 8, Idaho
- A man in Pocatello is lucky to be alive after a middle of the night scare when he started having shortness of breath. After rushing to Portneuf Medical Center, he went immediately into surgery for blood clots.
Nov 26, 2009
TDN.com
- Wendy Zieliski has a favorite photo on the wall of her Rainier home. In it, she and her husband and two of their grandchildren have beaming smiles, a snowy Mount Adams in the background. That photo has helped the 61-year-old woman get through more than a year with a failing heart.
Nov 18, 2009
MedPage Today
- Recent years have brought little good news in heart failure research, as a string of studies have reported null findings. But two studies discussed in this exclusive MedPage Today InFocus™ report buck that trend.
Nov 17, 2009
LA Times
- Mechanical pumps originally designed to supplement the pumping action of a failing heart and keep the patient alive until a transplant could be found have taken a major step toward becoming a permanent treatment, a development that could expand their use to tens of thousands of patients in the United States alone.
Oct 25, 2009
Edmonton Sun
- Six months ago, Spruce Grove Saints forward Shane Lehman celebrated an Alberta Junior Hockey League regular season championship by hoisting the Dave Duchak Trophy... That night was the beginning of the end of a hockey career
Oct 19, 2009
9 News - Colorado
- Sunday morning about 10,000 runners took to the streets for the 4th annual Denver Marathon.
Sep 10, 2009
ConnectTriStates.com
- When a doctor listens to Mike Price's heart through a stethoscope, the doctor doesn't hear a heartbeat. He hears a whirring sound. That's because of this machine, the Heart Mate Two Left Ventricular Assist Device, or LVAD.
Sep 4, 2009
The Post and Courier
- Thomas Joyner no longer feels his heart whir when he puts his hand to his chest. He can feel it beat again. A revolutionary device embedded near his heart gave him time to live until a transplant last week.v
Sep 3, 2009
AME Info
- An AUB medical team successfully performed, at the American University of Beirut Medical Center, the first 'artificial heart' implant in Lebanon, thus saving the life of a 37-year-old man suffering from terminal heart failure.
Sep 3, 2009
Live 5 News (WCSC)
- A first of its kind medical procedure in the state is successfully completed on a patient at the Medical University of South Carolina. Thomas Joyner, the first recipient of an implantable heart pump finally gets a new heart after a nearly three month wait.
Jul 27, 2009
Washington DC NBC
- For the almost 9,000 Americans waiting for a heart transplant, the chance of ever getting a new heart can be small. But now a new artificial heart is giving heart failure patients more time to live.
Jul 22, 2009
WNBC-TV Channel 4 (NY, NY)
- The Heartmate 2, FDA approved last year, is a new purse-sized heart pump. The device helps restore good blood flow to the patient's heart and other organs.
Jul 22, 2009
WCSC - Live 5 News - Charleston, SC
- Patrick Spotola doesn't mince words when he talks about the HeartMate 2.
Jul 13, 2009
The Record (Stockton, CA)
- Death came knocking at Irene Armendarez's door in 2006. The Stockton woman's heart was failing fast, and there appeared to be little hope.
Jul 9, 2009
CBS-4 (Miami)
- It wasn't that long ago that Orfelina Torres had a hard time taking a short walk and was prone to fainting spells. But now, thanks to a new device she carries around with her wherever she goes, the 58-year-old Torres has a new lease on life.
Jun 7, 2009
KUSI-TV San Diego
- Heart disease patients who are very thankful to be alive, showed their appreciation today at Crown Point. Thankful for a mechanical device, implanted in their chest, that keeps their blood flowing. Mission Bay, filled with heart-felt gratitude from dozens of cardiovascular disease patients whose lives have been saved.
Jun 4, 2009
The Post-Courier
- This time, it was a paramedic and volunteer firefighter who needed rescuing; and the Medical University of South Carolina hospital became the first in the state to implant a device intended to keep him alive and at home while he awaits a new heart.
May 27, 2009
My Fox Twin Cities
- MINNEAPOLIS - After an unrelated surgery in April, Minneapolis police Sgt. Bill Blake learned he has major problems with his heart, which doctors say won't last more than two years.
May 10, 2009
Malaysia Star
- Tan Geek Koon is fitted with a “mechanical heart” and she has to lug around a 9kg portable battery if she wants to move about.
May 10, 2009
Toledo Blade
- Kristy Kress had never been pregnant before, so when the expectant mother had trouble breathing late last summer, she didn't question those who said it was common.
May 8, 2009
CBS Early Show
- (CBS) Three years ago, 27-year-old Salina Gonzales was diagnosed with congestive heart failure, and was told she had just one month to live.
Apr 30, 2009
WJLA.com
- Thanks to the support of his community, a Silver Spring boy is not only surviving but thriving after a potentially fatal virus attacked his heart.
Apr 16, 2009
The Herald
- A young mother who was facing death has a new lease of life because she can now plug herself into the electric mains to keep her faulty heart beating.
Apr 15, 2009
Star Community Newspapers
- Jessica Kath’s dream of working at Disney World suddenly turned into a nightmare when she collapsed during a parade from congestive heart failure.
Apr 11, 2009
CBS Evening News
- It's all thanks to a highly unusual medical procedure that holds promise for the thousands of people every year who need a heart transplant and can't get one, as CBS Evening News Saturday anchor Jeff Glor reports.
Apr 10, 2009
KXAN-TV CH 36 (NBC)
- A new program at Seton is helping patients with heart problems live longer.
Apr 6, 2009
The Town Talk
- It might not be an actual human heart, but it is a machine he wears to control the flow of blood from his heart to the rest of his body, wife Andrea Paul said.
Mar 6, 2009
Avon Grove Sun
- Ned Smith did not want to accept the fact that his heart was giving out.
Feb 2, 2009
Rediff News- Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
- Dr Arvind Koshal, is one of the two Indo-Canadian recipients of 2008's Order of Canada [Images], the country's highest civilian honor. Dr Koshal, director, Mazankowski Alberta Heart Institute, Edmonton, Alberta, said the award was in recognition of his "contributions to cardiac surgeries and for developing the leading cardiac care center in the country." The other awardee is dancer Lata Pada.
Jan 29, 2009
Business Gazette
- When Bowie 16-year-old Miles Davis returned to classes at the Nora School in Silver Spring earlier this school year, other students didn't know how to treat him. He'd just had open-heart surgery to implant a left ventricular assist device, a mechanical pump to help his failing heart, and he wore a battery pack around his waist to keep it operating.
Jan 27, 2009
Penn State Live, PA
- Heart failure is a common medical condition. In fact, it is the most common cause of hospitalization for people over the age of 65. The very name is frightening — heart failure sounds as though someone may die at any moment. Indeed, the risk of dying from it was high in the past. But medical and surgical advances over the past 20 years have changed the nature of heart failure treatment from simply trying to slow progression of the disease to one where we can actually improve the heart’s condition. Today, heart failure is a chronic disease that people can live with for many years while maintaining a good quality of life.
Jan 10, 2009
WPTV
- An estimated five million people across the nation are suffering from congestive heart failure, according to the American Heart Association. That figure is expected to double in the next 30 years. More than half a million new cases are diagnosed every year.
Jan 3, 2009
Gulf Times, Qatar
- CONTINUOUS flow heart pumps are going to be the ‘wave of the future’ for treating heart failure, a visiting expert told a cardiovascular symposium hosted yesterday by Hamad Medical Corporation.
Dec 23, 2008
Tulsa World
- After spending 36 days in Integris Baptist Hospital in Oklahoma City and 10 more in an apartment there, the 50-year-old Tulsan came home Friday with a battery-operated heart pump implanted in his chest.
Dec 18, 2008
KTRK-TV CH 13 (ABC) Houston
- Two children with a mechanical heart device met at TX Children's Hospital today.
Nov 19, 2008
ABC News
- D'Zhana Simmons says she felt like a "fake person" for 118 days when she had no heart beating in her chest. "But I know that I really was here," the 14-year-old said, "and I did live without a heart."
Nov 14, 2008
KAAL TV ABC
- A cord attached to a battery pack is what one Minnesota man attributes to keeping him alive.
Nov 2, 2008
The Sunday Times
- When the South African surgeon Christiaan Barnard carried out the first heart transplant in December 1967, the world held its breath. His patient, 53-year-old Lewis Washkansky, lived for only another 18 days. The drugs he needed to stop his body rejecting the new organ compromised his immune system to such an extent he couldn’t fight off other illnesses, and he died of pneumonia. But the precedent had been set: the most powerful and emotionally iconic of human organs could be taken from the body of a dead person to give the chance of an extended life to another. It was a transforming, era-defining moment that reinforced our faith in medical science and ensured Barnard’s place in history. But how successful would heart transplantation be in the long term?
Oct 28, 2008
UM News (University of Minnesota)
- William Sowdon was constantly losing his breath and could only walk at a snail's pace. Laura Huber, at 28, had a rare case of postpartum cardiomyopathy, a condition where the heart muscle is inflamed and doesn't function well.
Oct 13, 2008
Daily Mail, UK
- Around 20,000 Britons suffer from dilated cardiomyopathy, which weakens their heart muscles, putting them at serious risk of heart failure. James Jackson, 22, a labourer from Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, had an artificial heart implanted to keep him alive while his own heart recovered, as he tells Thea Jourdan.
Sep 22, 2008
Bellingham Herald
- If not for the persistence of the woman who loved him, Jeff L. Frere's life may have ended suddenly and mysteriously at the young age of 46, at least until an autopsy showed the damage to his heart and arteries.
Sep 10, 2008
RTT News
- For patients suffering from advanced-stage heart failure and awaiting heart transplantation, the approval of Thoratec's HeartMate II by the FDA on April 21, represents a new hope, as drug therapies have not proven to be an effective solution. The device was approved in Europe as early as November 2005.
Aug 16, 2008
Business Week
- There's a new device on the market that will help bridge the gap for those suffering from heart disease and on the lengthy list for a heart transplant.
Aug 6, 2008
Medical News Today
- Seven years after Joaquin Lucio's kidneys shut down, he had a heart attack and was taken to a Los Angeles area hospital where doctors performed an angioplasty to clear his coronary arteries. He also was suffering from idiopathic congestive heart failure - a condition in which the heart becomes weak and enlarged - and a special pacemaker was implanted to provide support.
Jul 21, 2008
KFMB-TV Channel 8 San Diego
- When it comes to hearts, Taneal Wilson won the lottery. A small pump implanted to keep the 31-year-old alive long enough for a heart transplant somehow helped Wilson's ravaged heart completely recover instead.
Jul 18, 2008
KOLD-TV, CBS
- A Tucson man has become the first University Medical Center patient to get a relatively new mechanical heart assist device.
Jul 17, 2008
KATV - Little Rock,AR
- The numbers are staggering. An estimated 5-million Americans are affected by congestive heart failure, with nearly 500,000 cases diagnosed each year. But an innovative device is pumping new life into heart patients. And a local hospital has been given the green light to offer this revolutionary procedure.
Jul 10, 2008
ABC
- “… Earl Ingemann is a live wire. A 19-year-old Bermudan, he is constantly eluding doctors and nurses who want him to stay put and behave like other patients on the heart transplant list. But Earl would rather prowl the hospital, go out for junk food, play video games and get his hair braided. However, he needs something more than a routine heart transplant and doctors are worried.”
Jul 8, 2008
Cardiovascular Device & Drugs
- Last month's approval of the advanced generation ventricular assist device (VAD) from Thoratec (Pleasanton, California) ? the HeartMate II Left Ventricular Assist System (LVAS) ? is leading the way in heart pump devices that are smaller, and touted as more efficient, and thus more available for implantation in smaller bodies: women, smaller men and younger people.
Jul 8, 2008
Cardiovascular Device & Drugs
- Gary Burbach focused on QUALITY of LIFE for HEART FAILURE PATIENTS
Jul 8, 2008
WCBD – TV, South Carolina
- In the coming years, thousands of people with fatal diseases of the heart will continue to enjoy birthdays, weddings, and the company of grandchildren.
Jul 1, 2008
KWTV-TV CH 9 (CBS) Oklahoma City
- State-of-the-art technology for heart disease patients is now available in our state.
Jun 9, 2008
KUTV (CBS) – Salt Lake City
- Years ago, it was often a death sentence, but in our Healthy Living report, new technology has providing new hope for patients suffering from heart failure.
Jun 9, 2008
University of Michigan Health Systems Newsletter
- Heart transplants save the lives of more than 2,100 Americans every year. But many more patients are still waiting for a new heart to become available, and hundreds will die without ever getting a second chance at life.
Jun 5, 2008
KTHV-TV CH 11 (CBS) Little Rock/Pine Bluff
- "We've read that it can happen from a cold from pneumonia from arthritis, from regular infections that you would have and not think anything about it." Chuck Simons thought he was just getting another head cold when he went to his doctor in hot springs. That doctor visit ended like a bad dream. "So he came back in and said "Chuck, it's not a head cold," he said, "This is one of the worst EKG's I've ever seen." "He sent me over to a cardiologist in Hot Springs and they said you get to get checked into the hospital, do not pass go."
May 29, 2008
The Province (Vancouver)
- When Al Smith was diagnosed with a rare and fatal heart condition, there was a chance the Victoria man would not live long enough to receive a transplant.
May 26, 2008
Market Wire
- Physicians, patients and representatives from the Province and Provincial Health Services Authority will gather to recognize the B.C. Acute Heart Failure Program's unprecedented number of ventricular assist devices (or mechanical hearts) implanted th
May 15, 2008
WTOL 11
- It's the number one killer in America, but a brand-new, revolutionary device has the potential to save thousands battling heart disease.
May 5, 2008
Forbes
- David Pierce used to get short of breath every time he climbed the half-flight of stairs in his suburban Detroit home. Four years ago the machinist's congestive heart disease, which had forced him to retire early from his job at General Motors (nyse: GM - news - people ), had advanced to end-stage
Apr 28, 2008
The Dallas Morning News
- Sandy Gaddis felt chills, aches and a fever. But what at first looked like a classic flu bug soon revealed itself as something much worse: a deadly viral infection threatening her heart.
Apr 24, 2008
CBS 11
- A North Texas woman is alive, thanks to a mechanical device that repaired her diseased heart.
Apr 16, 2008
Duncanville Today
- In the midst of any serious medical condition, it is difficult to be hopeful. Yet for Lois Coker of Duncanville and her family, one significant surgery brought a ray of hope to her diagnosis.
Apr 4, 2008
Good Morning America
- As a 17-year-old, Salina Gonzales successfully fought Hodgkin's lymphoma with chemotherapy, and at the time doctors said she'd go on to live a normal life.
Mar 26, 2008
ABC World News with Charles Gibson
- A new experimental device to help a failing heart is awaiting FDA approval, but it has already helped save the life of one woman who agreed to test it.
Mar 1, 2008
Best Life
- Greg Jones is slouched in an office chair on the ground floor of his two-story house four miles west of downtown Chicago, a Windows error frozen on the computer screen behind him. I reach for his wrist—no pulse. I feel again, shifting my fingers to cover the radial artery—still nothing. That’s when I look at his face and he gives me a big smile.
Jan 25, 2008
ABC World News with Charles Gibson
- From the outside, Salina Gonzales looks pretty much like any other shopper — but it's what's going on inside her body that is so remarkable.
Jan 17, 2008
Sound Off
- The system controller, an electronic device strapped around Jose Vargas' waist, suddenly buzzed while a row of tiny lights flashed.
Oct 17, 2007
PBS
- Endlessly Beating examines the heart as a muscle - pumping almost 100,000 times a day, pushing approximately five quarts of blood in an endless course to deliver oxygen to every cell of the human body. This hour tells the story of the normal heart through the histories of three people with end-stage heart failure, where a pump may be a temporary remedy, but in the long term, a transplant is almost always necessary.
Sep 25, 2007
The Washington Times
- The strap and battery pack worn over Roger-Guy M. Folly's shoulder gives new meaning to wearing your heart on your sleeve.
Sep 22, 2007
Sacramento Bee
- For Steven "Stretch" Andersen, the signs of heart failure were hard to ignore: Winded after climbing a few bleacher steps at the NASCAR race in Las Vegas, unable to finish even half a New York steak, his normally ruddy complexion turning a dull gray.
Sep 21, 2007
UPI
- Thoratec Corp., a U.S. company, has developed an implantable pump that can help people with advanced heart failure survive while awaiting a transplant.
Aug 31, 2007
NEJM August 31, 2007
- The use of left ventricular assist devices is an accepted therapy for patients with refractory heart failure, but current pulsatile volume-displacement devices have limitations (including large pump size and limited long-term mechanical durability) that have reduced widespread adoption of this technology. Continuous-flow pumps are newer types of left ventricular assist devices developed to overcome some of these limitations...
Aug 29, 2007
Washington Post
- A new kind of heart pump helped patients with heart failure so severe that their only option was a transplant, cardiologists report.
Jun 27, 2007
Dental and Health Articles
- Surgeons at Emory University Hospital recently implanted Georgia's first HeartMate II ventricular assist device (VAD) as a form of destination therapy (in place of a donor transplant) for individuals who are not eligible for, or unwilling to undergo, a heart transplant.
Jun 5, 2007
Deseret Morning News
- Stanley Roberts was once cardiologist Dr. William Mackie's physician's assistant. Years later, when Roberts' heart was failing, his doctor-friend said he held Roberts together with "baling wire and duct tape."
May 28, 2007
Medical News Today
- Mark Heiner of Culver City reads books, paints artistically, takes walks and does laundry activities that would be considered routine except for the fact that a four-pound disk implanted in his abdominal cavity is keeping his blood flowing.
Apr 9, 2007
CBS News
- Left Ventricular Assist Devices, Or LVADs, Could Put Patients On The Road To Recovery
Mar 21, 2007
Barnes-Jewish Hospital
- FAIRLAND, Okla. - John Brock's heart failed while looking into the mouth of an open grave.
Mar 17, 2007
SABC News
- Nokkie Gerrits is the first man in Africa to receive the Heartmate. The left ventrical assist device is an electrical machine that performs the pumping function of the heart while the patient receives treatment. If the heart recovers enough to start pumping again, the device can be removed.
Feb 26, 2007
KHOU Channel 11
- She was seven months pregnant and diagnosed with stage IV Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
Berkeley Heights womans heart receives boost with new implant
Feb 14, 2007
Summit Independent Press
- Delores Treich, 72, of Berkeley Heights was critically-ill when she was transferred from a referring hospital to Newark Beth Israel Medical Center in December. Her heart was functioning at only 5% capacity before she underwent surgery to have the HeartMate II Left Ventricular Assist Device (LVAD) implanted. This lifesaving procedure was performed by Margarita T. Camacho, MD, surgical director of Cardiac Transplantation and Assist Devices at the Saint Barnabas Heart Center at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center.
Jan 10, 2007
St. Petersburg Times
- He had cancer surgery and got a heart device, and through it all, he didn't miss a game.
Jan 3, 2007
Associated Press
- A late December Medicare proposal to increase the number of hospitals authorized to implant a specialized mechanical heart device made by Thoratec could significantly expand the market for the company's products, an analyst said Wednesday.
