CardioExchange Archive

ADVANCE (Evaluation of the HeartWare HVAD Left Ventricular Assist Device System for the Treatment of Advanced Heart Failure) evaluated the clinical efficacy of a novel small centrifugal flow pump as a bridge-to-transplant. In the trial, 140 patients who received the device were compared to a contemporaneous control group of 499 similar patients who had received a commercially available LVAD as a bridge-to-transplant. Results of ADVANCE were presented on Sunday at the AHA meeting in Chicago.

At 180 days, 92% of HVAD patients were alive, had received a transplant, or had recovered and no longer needed the device, compared to 90% of controls. This result met the predefined test for noninferiority (P<0.001). The 1-year survival rate was 91% in the HVAD group compared to 86% in the controls.

Compared to baseline, HVAD-treated patients were able to walk farther (113 meters) and had significant improvements in several quality-of-life measures. The investigators reported that the HVAD had a favorable adverse event profile when used as a bridge-to-transplant and that “large quality of life and functional capacity improvements are similar to those obtained with cardiac transplantation.”