Chronic aortic counterpulsation with latissimus dorsi in heart failure: clinical follow-up

Dynamic aortomyoplasty is an alternative technique to heart transplantation. The goal of our study was to evaluate the benefits of aortic counterpulsation obtained by dynamic thoracic aortomyoplasty in patients with heart failure refractory to pharmacologic treatment and contraindications to heart transplant or cardiomyoplasty.

In this study we compared preoperative and postoperative data from five out of six carefully selected patients who were treated with dynamic thoracic aortomyoplasty. This surgical technique wraps the right latissimus dorsi muscle flap around the ascending aorta. This muscle flap was electrically stimulated during diastole, following a muscle-conditioning protocol, to obtain diastolic augmentation. At the 6-month follow-up period we evaluated, invasively and noninvasively, the hemodynamic and clinical effects of aortomyoplasty.

We observed a significant decrease in the number of hospitalizations (P = 0.01), NYHA functional class (P = 0.01), cardiothoracic ratio (P = 0.02), right ventricular diameter (P = 0.03), left atrial diameter (P = 0.04), and pulmonary artery systolic pressure (P = 0.04); and a significant increase in the 6-minute walking test (P = 0.01), cardiac index (P = 0.04), noninvasive evaluation of diastolic augmentation (P = 0.01), left ventricular shortening fraction (P = 0.01), and radioisotopic left ventricular ejection fraction (P = 0.02). We also found a nonsignificant decrease in the left ventricular diameter (P = 0.08) and wedge pressure (P = 0.19); and a nonsignificant increase in peak oxygen consumption (P = 0.13).

Dynamic thoracic aortomyoplasty in heart failure resulted in an important improvement of hemodynamic parameters, heart functional data, and clinical functional class, when comparing preoperative data with the 6-month follow-up data.