Preoperative Computed Tomography Virtual Simulation for HeartMate 3 Implantation in Small Children

An implantable ventricular assist device became smaller and has been used for small body size patients. However, it is still challenging to determine whether it is implantable for pediatric patients. The preoperative computed tomography virtual simulation provided spatial information among the pump, intracardiac structures, and extracardiac structures, which was very useful to assess the implantability for borderline children. We present a 9-year-old girl with dilated cardiomyopathy (weight, 20.0 kg; body surface area, 0.86 m²) and an 8-year-old boy with Marfan syndrome with severe ventricular dysfunction (weight, 25.0 kg; body surface area, 1.05 m²), who had preoperative virtual simulation and subsequent successful HeartMate 3 (Abbott Cardiovascular) implantation.