Left Ventricular Assist Device

The Left Ventricular Assist Device (LVAD) is used as a bridge to transplant, bridge to recovery and as destination therapy (long-term treatment for patients who are ineligible for a heart transplant).

Helping the Heart

Heart pumps, or ventricular assist devices, are being used to treat patients with severe heart failure. The devices are temporary for some and permanent for others. they are attached to a patient's own heart and run by batteries.

The pump is placed just below the diaphragm in the abdomen. It collects blood from the left ventricle and pumps it through the aorta.

Natural circulation continues as the implant provides additional support, pumping blood throughout the body.

HeartMate® II

The HeartMate® II is an egg-sized implantable LVAD which keeps heart transplant candidates alive who have run out of options while waiting for a donor organ.

The Thoratec HeartMate® II is FDA approved. Using titanium parts, it is smaller than other commercially available implantable VAD devices and the most recent generation of LVADs performing the work of the main pumping chamber of the heart.

LVADs offer either a short-term bridge to transplant - or can be used as destination therapy. However, the HeartMate® II can be used indefinitely, as the device does not destroy blood cells and the inner surface of the device becomes lined with the patient's own endothelial cells as blood flows through it.

The HeartMate® is a portable device allowing an improved quality of life and psycholocigal outlook to patients such as Irene Armendarez.

California Pacific Heart and Vascular Center

California Pacific's Heart and Vascular Center is supported by one of the best heart hospital/center networks in the USA, offering quality, comprehensive patient-centered cardiovascular care by a team of top heart surgeons and physicians with leading-edge technology. Serving the entire San Francisco Bay Area, including San Francisco and Marin County, as well as the entire Northern California region, our team has many of the best cardiovascular surgeons and physicians in California and the United States.