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Copyright ©The Author(s) 2016. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Cardiol. Dec 26, 2016; 8(12): 695-702
Published online Dec 26, 2016. doi: 10.4330/wjc.v8.i12.695
To ventricular assist devices or not: When is implantation of a ventricular assist device appropriate in advanced ambulatory heart failure?
Emily Cerier, Brent C Lampert, Arman Kilic, Asia McDavid, Salil V Deo, Ahmet Kilic
Emily Cerier, Asia McDavid, Ahmet Kilic, Division of Cardiac Surgery, The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, Columbus, OH 43210, United States
Brent C Lampert, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, Columbus, OH 43210, United States
Arman Kilic, Division of Cardiovascular Surgery, Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, United States
Salil V Deo, Harrington Heart and Vascular Institute, University Hospitals, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH 44106, United States
Author contributions: All of the authors contributed to this manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: AK serves as consultant for Baxter International and St. Jude Medical; travel grant from HeartWare. BL and EC have no disclosures.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Ahmet Kilic, MD, Assistant Professor of Surgery, Division of Cardiac Surgery, The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, N-816 Doan Hall, 410 W. 10th Avenue, Columbus, OH 43210, United States. ahmet.kilic@osumc.edu
Telephone: +1-614-2938878 Fax: +1-614-2934726
Received: July 12, 2016
Peer-review started: July 13, 2016
First decision: August 4, 2016
Revised: October 11, 2016
Accepted: October 22, 2016
Article in press: October 24, 2016
Published online: December 26, 2016
Core Tip

Core tip: Heart failure remains the most common diagnosis in patients discharged from the hospital. In its most advanced stages, it bears a grim prognosis and there are only a limited number of treatments that can truly change the course of the disease. Advancements in left ventricular assist device technology have enticed clinicians to expand their role in earlier ambulatory, but advanced heart failure. Here, we describe the current equilibrium between early implantation and risks of the current technology.