How to Do Echocardiography in Heart Failure Patients with Long-term Left Ventricular Assist Devices: A Consensus Statement of the Italian Society of Echocardiography and Cardiovascular Imaging.

Abstract

1. LVADs have emerged as destination therapy for advanced heart failure, however, these are still limited by many potential complications after implant, such as right heart failure, aortic regurgitation, thrombosis, infections 2. A seriate and accurate echocardiographic evaluation is needed in LVAD carriers but may sometimes be challenging, due to artifacts or poor acoustic windows due to the device 3. Left ventricular unloading is the main feature to consider to evaluate and adjust device function and requires many echocardiographic parameters to be assessed 4. Ramp test during echocardiography may be of additional value to optimize device speed and to early identify pump dysfunction.