A left ventricular assist device was implanted in two patients with myopathy (Duchenne and Becker), with refractory heart failure and not eligible at this stage for transplantation.
In May 2018, Dr. Denis Duboc’s team implanted a left ventricular assist device in two patients, aged 20 and 40, with myopathy (Duchenne and Becker), refractory heart failure and ineligible at this stage at the transplant.
This first in France was conducted in collaboration with the cardiac surgery, anesthesia-resuscitation and medical resuscitation departments of the Georges-Pompidou European Hospital AP-HP; medical resuscitation and neurology services at the Raymond-Poincaré AP-HP Hospital; as well as the team of Prof. Bruno Eymard, of the Institute of Myology (Inserm / Sorbonne University) at the hospital of Pitié-Salpêtrière AP-HP.
A left ventricular assist device can only be put in place when the only left part of the heart fails and when the myopathic process respects the right heart. A very precise evaluation must therefore be performed before the intervention to determine the patients eligible for this type of assistance.
This is the first time that this therapeutic approach is proposed to patients with refractory cardiomyopathies in the context of systemic myopathies. In addition, this system is usually set up for patients waiting for transplantation, and the two operated patients could not at this stage benefit from a transplant.
Both patients are well and have returned home, after becoming familiar with the operation of the device. They will be regularly monitored from September 2018 in a day hospital at Cochin Hospital AP-HP.
If these first positive results are confirmed, this assistance could soon be offered to other eligible patients suffering from refractory cardiomyopathies associated with their muscular disease.
