HeartCARE Cardiology News Archive Featured in the Media JeffNEWS

On Monday morning, March 19, cardiac surgeons Scott Silvestry, M.D. and Linda Bogar, M.D. at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital opened the chest of a 55-year-old man suffering from chronic heart failure and implanted a Jarvik 2000 Heart Assist System to save his life. The Advanced Heart Failure and Cardiac Transplant team at Jefferson University Hospital is the first in the state to implant the new device.

In a little more than four hours, the Jarvik 2000 Heart Assist System was helping the man’s heart resume its normal blood flow. Rather than take over for the biological heart, the Jarvik 2000 Heart Assist System augments the weakened heart’s blood output to help to restore a normal flow throughout the body.

“The Jarvik 2000 Heart Assist System is the next generation of assist devices—a smaller, more durable pump that is implanted into the left heart ventricle itself,” explains Scott Silvestry, M.D., Surgical Director, Heart Transplant Program. “At Thomas Jefferson University Hospital this smaller assist device was implanted without the use of the heart-lung machine through an incision in the left chest. It enables us to provide a less invasive option for use in BTT indication—bridge to transplant—to help patients to become stronger and in better physical condition for a new heart.”

“The Jarvik 2000 Heart Assist System is designed to complement the heart’s own function,” says Paul Mather, M.D., Director of the Advanced Heart Failure and Cardiac Transplant Center at Thomas Jefferson University, “not to entirely replace it. Our patient should be able to resume a somewhat normal life while wearing the device.”

This device, implanted as part of an FDA-authorized clinical trial, is currently only available in Pennsylvania at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital.  This is the 200^th implant globally of this device.

The Jarvik 2000 Heart Assist System is the smallest and simplest left ventricular assist device available. It is about the size of a C battery and fits directly inside the heart’s left chamber. In the patient’s chest, it pumps blood from the heart at up to seven liters per minute.

Members of the Jefferson Advanced Heart Failure and Cardiac Transplant Center who were involved with the first Jarvik 2000 Heart Assist System to be implanted in Pennsylvania include: transplant surgeon Scott Silvestry, M.D., who is also assistant professor of Surgery at Jefferson Medical College;  Paul Mather, M.D., associate professor of Medicine at Jefferson Medical College; Linda Bogar, M.D., transplant surgeon and assistant professor of Surgery at Jefferson Medical College; Linda Sundt, M.D., clinical assistant professor of Anesthesiology at Jefferson Medical College and James Diehl, M.D., clinical professor of Surgery at Jefferson Medical College and Director, Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery.