Outcomes of Ventricular Assist Device Use for Bridge to Heart Transplant in Children with Single-Ventricle Heart Disease

Purpose As the use of pediatric ventricular assist devices (VAD) has increased, more children are being supported with VADs for single-ventricle heart disease (SVD). Little is known about outcomes for this rapidly growing population of advanced HF patients. We sought to examine trends in VAD use for SVD and to assess outcomes. Methods Organ Procurement and Transplant Network (OPTN) data were used to identify all children ≤21 years who underwent VAD placement between 2004 and 2020 for SVD. Cox proportional hazard modeling was used to identify risk factors for mortality defined as death or clinical deterioration. Results Of 1955 children with SVD, 315 were supported with an MCS device (145 SVADs and 170 ECMO only). Of the SVADs, 142 (97%) received an SVAD alone as the primary device, 2 (1%) received BIVADs and 1 (1%) a TAH. The most common VAD brands were the Berlin Heart EXCOR (N=44, 30%), the CentriMag/PediMag (N=40, 28%), Heartware HVAD (N=35, 24%), and the CentriMag/PediMag (ZZ%) and the Heartmate III (N=8, 6%). Since 2011 (when complete VAD survival data become available), overall survival to HT was 62% of whom 58% reached transplant; 38% died or deteriorated, and 2% recovered. Survival was significantly worse compared to pediatric VAD patients supported for DCM and comparable to patients supported for 2-ventricle CHD (P=0.79) (Find). Survival to transplant was highest for adult continuous flow devices (77%) and lower for the CentriMag/PediMag system (63%) and the Berlin Heart EXCOR (63%). Conclusion VAD outcomes for bridge to transplant for single-ventricle heart disease patients are similar to other forms of 2-ventricle CHD but inferior to DCM. The highest survival appears to be in patients receiving adult CF devices with room for improvement in smaller patients receiving non-dischargeable devices.