Cardiac Function Recovery Using Ejection Fraction In The Presence Of A Continuous Flow Left Ventricular Assist Device

Abstract

The continuous flow Left Ventricular Assist Device (LVAD) is increasingly used as a bridge to recovery for treating patients with mild congestive heart failure. An important challenge facing the use of this device is the ability to monitor the heart elastance during recovery without the reliance on extensive invasive procedures. One possible approach is to use the concept of ejection fraction (EF) which, in a healthy unassisted heart, is defined as the ratio of the blood ejected into the circulatory system to the blood that is available in the left ventricle after filling in every cardiac cycle. In the case of a patient with a continuous flow LVAD this definition of EF needs to be modified to take into account the contribution of the LVAD to the blood flow in the circulatory system. For a successful bridge to recovery treatment, the left ventricular elastance should exhibit gradual improvement following the implantation of the LVAD. Such an improvement should be accompanied with an improvement in EF. In this paper we investigate the use of a modified definition of EF that takes into account the presence of an LVAD to determine if ventricular elastance is improving following the use of the LVAD. We use a validated mathematical model of the left ventricle supported by a LVAD. Our results, based on computer simulations using this model, show that an increase in the modified EF does indeed result in an increase in ventricular elastance for a wide range of patient's activity.

Publication Date

4-6-2018

Publication Title

2018 IEEE EMBS International Conference on Biomedical and Health Informatics, BHI 2018

Volume

2018-January

Number of Pages

311-314

Document Type

Article; Proceedings Paper

Personal Identifier

scopus

DOI Link

https://doi.org/10.1109/BHI.2018.8333431

Socpus ID

85050867208 (Scopus)

Source API URL

https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/85050867208

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