Ivan Wilmot
Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Heart Institute, USA
Title: Pediatric mechanical circulatory support
Biography
Biography: Ivan Wilmot
Abstract
Mechanical circulatory support (MCS) in the pediatric heart failure population has a limited history especially for infants, and neonates. It has been increasingly recognized that there is a rapidly expanding population of children diagnosed and living with heart failure. This expanding population has resulted in increasing numbers of children with medically resistant end-stage heart failure. The traditional therapy for these children has been heart transplantation. However, children with heart failure unlike adults do not have symptoms until they present with end-stage heart failure and therefore, cannot safely wait for transplantation.
Many of these children were bridged to heart transplantation utilizing extracorporeal membranous oxygenation as a bridge to transplant which has yielded poor results. We discuss MCS options for short and long-term support that are currently available for infants and children with end-stage heart failure. Additionally, we discuss MCS as a bridge to transplantation and as chronic therapy in the pediatric population. Pediatric MCS options provide a life-saving option for the increasing population of children with refractory heart failure.