The totally implantable Novacor Left Ventricular Assist System

The Novacor Left Ventricular Assist System (LVAS) (Novacor Corp, Oakland, CA) was initially console-based and has been available since 1993 in a wearable configuration. It has been successfully used for the past 16 years as a bridge to cardiac transplantation in patients with end-stage congestive heart failure. The Stanford experience represents 53 patients (48 male, 5 female) with a mean age of 44 ± 13 years (16 to 62) and a mean support time of 56 ± 76 days (1 to 374). Complications with LVAS use consisted predominantly of bleeding (43%), infection, (30%), and embolic cerebrovascular events (24.5%). Sixty-six percent of the supported patients were successfully bridged to cardiac transplantation. In animal studies, 4 sheep had the totally implantable configuration in place for a cumulative duration of 1 year with 1 animal supported for 260 days. The next generation Novacor LVAS will be small, quiet, and fully implantable without the need for volume compensation. It will also provide physiologic pulsatile flow and will be fail-safe.