Updated on
Summary
The device, called HeartMate II and made by Thoratec Corp, was approved by US health regulators in 2008 to keep patients alive while they waited for a heart transplant. But in January, it was approved for permanent use in patients who are ineligible for a transplant, expanding the number of potential recipients from a few thousand to tens of thousands, and potentially changing the landscape for the treatment of end-stage heart failure. There has been a ten-fold increase in the use of these devices since they were approved for permanent use, said Dr. Lynne Warner Stevenson, Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and director, Cardiomyopathy and Heart Failure at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.
