High-risk surgery as an alternative to heart transplant or ventricular assist device

My coauthors and I  appreciate the interest in our study and the comments of Drs Adhyapak and Parachuri. We agree that our study focused on a previously underinvestigated patient cohort, namely those who in addition to having severe left ventricular dysfunction met criteria for advanced surgical therapies such as tra nsplant or ventricular assist device implantation. In contrast to many studies that simply used a left ventricular ejection fraction value less than 20% as an inclusion criterion, our study excluded those patients who had transient “hibernating” myocardium and those with stable cardiomyopathies not requiring advanced therapies.
Source: The Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery - Category: Cardiovascular & Thoracic Surgery Authors: Tags: Acquired: Mechanical circulatory support: Letter to the editor Source Type: research