In 1980, Drs. Bartley Griffith and Robert Hardesty initiated a cardiac transplantation effort at the University of Pittsburgh (UoP), that within five years was the most active cardiac transplantation program in the U.S. In 1985, UoP began the use of mechanical circulatory support (MCS) as a bridge-to-cardiac transplantation. As of this writing, UoP has implanted more than 275 patients with a variety of MCS devices. Further, UoP has been at the forefront in the design and development of MCS devices, including several that are currently used clinically and one that is about to undergo Phase I clinical trials.
It is not coincidental that the period during which UoP began its use of MCS as a bridge-to-cardiac transplantation also corresponds to Professor Raj’s participation in bioengineering and biomechanics research and education @UoP. Professor Raj served as the Ph.D. thesis adviser for several bioengineering graduate students whose professional work has involved the development of adult and pediatric MCS devices. Professor Raj has also served as the Ph.D. adviser for another bioengineering graduate student whose thesis work focused on the development of a new rheologic description of blood and mechanically-induced blood trauma, a serious concern associated with the clinical use of all MCS devices.
My presentation will summarize the UoP MCS experience and also describe ongoing multicenter clinical trials which are evaluating both the safety and efficacy of MCS devices in adult heart failure patients. Recent NIH-sponsored developments in MCS for infants and pediatric aged patients will also be discussed.
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