CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – UVA Health’s pediatric cardiology team was the first in Virginia to implant a temporary heart pump called Impella into patient under 18, back on Aug. 10.
The Impella device, according to Dr. Michael McCullough, Professor of Pediatrics and the Medical Director of the Pediatric Pulmonary Hypertension and Mechanical Circulatory Support Programs, is a small catheter-like heart pump to help pump blood in patients as they await heart transplant.
“Typically, what your heart is supposed to do is to squeeze and relax, squeeze and relax,” Dr. McCullough told a reporters’ conference call about the new heart pump. “And when patients develop… the most common group that this benefits are those with a dilated cardiomyopathy, meaning that the heart is progressively dilated over time, and it can’t squeeze to get enough blood out per minute to meet the body’s needs.”
He said that essentially is a heart failure that those who don’t respond adequately to medications that requires transplantation.
Those patients then need help with circulation as they await a heart.
“In these patients, what the Impella can do is, first of all, it’s a device that you can place by making a small incision above in the upper part of the chest, and they can insert it into one of the blood vessels that comes down into the aorta and comes down to the left side of the heart,” Dr. McCullough explained. “And this pump, very simply, is a… it’s a catheter that comes out, so the only thing that’s gone in is a small catheter about the size of a telephone cord.”
A current device that helps pump blood and also supports the lungs in these patients, Dr. McCullough pointed out, is ECMO, or extracorporeal membrane oxygenation.
The issue is it can only be done for a week or two, and the patient can’t move around.
“The difference for the Impella is it doesn’t support the lungs. Your lungs have to be healthy enough to not need that level of support, but it does allow you to walk and to eat and not need a breathing tube, and, you know, our patient has been able to rehab while she’s getting ready and waiting for her heart transplant,” said Dr. McCullough. “So, it’s a very significant decrease in the amount of machinery and the amount that it needs to keep you in one place, basically, as compared to a lot of the other support systems.”
“This is a young girl, and this is somebody who has never had anything to her knowledge wrong with her in her life,” Dr. McCullough said, “And to have to go from not even taking a single medication to needing to be on a heart transplant waitlist, this is the most minimal type of, at least as far as she can imagine, basically full heart support that you could utilize.”
Additionally, because it doesn’t require opening the chest it doesn’t cause any scar tissue the surgeon might have to navigate when it comes to the transplant surgery.
That also means a better recovery from that surgery.
“The ability to place in that machine and allow the patient to walk around and get stronger, really is a significant improvement in their ability to recover and get ready.”
