The HeartMate 3 Left Ventricular Assist System (Abbott) was designed with a fully magnetically levitated centrifugal continuous-flow pump to address concerns about thrombosis with the mechanical-bearing axial continuous-flow HeartMate II device. In the randomized MOMENTUM 3 trial, the two pumps were compared in 366 patients with advanced heart failure (either as bridge to transplantation or destination therapy). The composite primary end point (survival at 2 years free from disabling stroke or reoperation because of a malfunctioning device) occurred in 79.5% of patients in the HeartMate 3 group compared with 60.2% of patients in the HeartMate II group (HR 0.46, 95% CI 0.31–0.69, P < 0.001 for superiority). Of note, the overall rate of stroke was lower with the centrifugal-flow pump than with the axial-flow pump (10.1% versus 19.2%; HR 0.47, 95% CI 0.27–0.84, P = 0.02).
References
Mehra, M. R. et al. Two-year outcomes with a magnetically levitated cardiac pump in heart failure. N. Engl. J. Med. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa1800866 (2018)
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Lim, G. Superiority of a centrifugal-flow cardiac pump. Nat Rev Cardiol 15, 256 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrcardio.2018.31
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrcardio.2018.31