The Sandra Atlas Bass Heart Hospital at North Shore University Hospital became the first on Long Island last week to implant the newest generation of a left ventricular assist device for patients with advanced heart failure.
The new system, HeartMate 3, includes a device designed to reduce the need for a potential pump replacement, decreasing the risk of a clot developing in the pump. The pump is implanted into patients who have severe heart failure to help the weakened left ventricle pump blood throughout the body.
“The main benefit observed with this pump is that it has no reported incidents of pump thrombosis, which occurs in up 15 percent of older generation devices,” Dr. Brian Lima, director of heart transplantation surgery at the Sandra Atlas Bass Heart Hospital, said in a release. “The HeartMate 3 provides advanced heart failure patients a bridge to eventual heart transplantation or recovery.”
The HeartMate 3, developed by Abbott in Abbott Park, Ill., was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in August after a clinical study showed that patients with the system had a significant improvement in their status, an 83 percent increase in their walking distance and a 68 percent improvement in quality of life after six months, according to the study.
“In our second year, North Shore University Hospital’s advanced heart failure program offers patients the full spectrum of treatments to make their lives better,” said Dr. Harold Fernandez, surgical director of Northwell’s Advanced Heart Failure Program and chief of cardiothoracic surgery at Southside Hospital in Bay Shore. “We are very excited to add HeartMate 3 as the latest generation assist device to help patients. The device is much smaller, more efficient and probably more durable than its second generation counterpart.
“We are hoping that this addition to the full range of therapies we provide for our patients will allow us to improve the care we deliver so that they may return to their families and their communities much sooner.”
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 5.7 million people across the United States suffer from heart failure, and 915,000 patients are diagnosed every year. Northwell Health hospitals collectively treat more heart failure patients than any other system in the state, treating 21,000 heart failure patients —about 14 percent of the statewide total — in the past three years.
