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Heart Assist Devices
USC Cardiothoracic Surgeons are on the leading edge of incorporating the latest medical devices into their practice.
Many of these innovative devices are designed to keep the heart functioning in a patient who has heart failure. Heart failure can occur for many reasons -- congenital heart disease, cardiomyopathy, virus, drugs or previous heart attacks. Some of these devices are used as a “bridge” to transplant, while others are used to help the patient’s heart become stronger.
We are one of only a few centers on the West Coast that offers a "bridge" to transplantation utilizing the ventricular assist device (VAD).
Some of the medical devices we use have been available for some time, such as the ECMO machines, whereas the new HeartMate xVE is a new, state-of-the-art machine. The following is an overview of these devices:
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