Tag Archives: Impella

Introduction The Johnson and Johnson Inc. (formerly Abiomed Inc.) Impella left ventricular assist devices (LVADs) are catheter-based, intravascular, transaortic micro-axial flow pumps that supplement native ventricular function while providing ventricular offloading. There are a range of left ventricular Impella devices of increasing size from Impella 2.5, Impella Cardiac Power (CP), Impella 5.0 and Impella 5.5. The Impella 2.5 and CP are inserted via a percutaneous femoral access route, and provide up to 3.5 L/min blood flow, whereas the Impella 5.0 is deployed surgically via a branch graft to the subclavian artery and provides up to 5 L/m

Cardio-oncology and obstetrics Many cancer therapies are cardiotoxic, and as cancer survival has improved over recent decades so the number of patients living to develop cardiovascular complications of these therapies has risen. A recent position statement by the European Society of Cardiology stresses that “the cured cancer patient of today…[is at risk of becoming]…the heart failure patient of tomorrow”1 and management of these patients increasingly involves a cardiologist. In a highly educational presentation, Dr Zaheer Yousef (University Hospital of Wales, Cardiff) addressed the management of left ventricular systolic dysfunction (