[Ambulatory long-term management of a left ventricular assist device. Current modality in terminal heart failure]

We report about the first use and successful outpatient therapy with an implantable pulsatile left ventricular assist device (LVAD, Novacor) in a patient with a combined dilative and ischemic cardiomyopathy in Switzerland. The patient, a 51 year old man (112 kg, 191 cm, blood type A) developed end-stage heart failure (New York Heart Association class (NYHA) IV) while he was awaiting orthotopic heart transplantation. Due to his profession as an independent graphic-designer the patient was afraid of a long-term temporary disablement with consecutive bankruptcy. Therefore we decided and performed the implantation of a Novacor-LVAD as a bridge to transplantation with the possibility to outpatient therapy in a favourable course. The patient was supported by the device for more than five months. His cardiac functional status returned to NYHA class I, and the patient was discharged 5 weeks after implantation. He returned into his normal life and started working at 100% again. Furthermore the LVAD enabled the patient to participate in almost all activities. Five months (151 days) after implantation a donor organ became available and the patient underwent orthotopic heart transplantation. The use and successful outpatient therapy with an implantable pulsatile left ventricular assist device in our patient has proved to be save, reliable, life-saving, quality of life improving and could be an important alternative for the economic burden in heart failure therapy.