Medical News Today -- The Bluhm Cardiovascular Institute of Northwestern Memorial Hospital recently implanted a patient with two of the smallest experimental ventricular assist devices (VADs) currently available for study in humans. VADs are designed to assist either the right (RVAD) or left (LVAD) ventricle, or both (BiVAD) at once. This is the first time that two Heartware™ VADs have been implanted in the left and right ventricles anywhere in North America a “game changer” in the realm of heart assist devices according to Patrick M. McCarthy, MD, chief of the hospital’s division of cardiac surgery and director of the hospital’s Bluhm Cardiovascular Institute.
