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Hope for children suffering from heart failure in Japan: University of Tokyo Hospital plans to establish EXCOR® Pediatric VAD program

08-03-2010 09:06 AM CET | Health & Medicine

Press release from: Berlin Heart

Berlin Heart EXCOR Pediatric Training Tokyo

Berlin Heart EXCOR Pediatric Training Tokyo

Berlin, 30th of July 2010. Donor organs in Japan are rare, waiting times until a donor heart becomes available are quite long. Especially children, who from now on can receive donor organs due to recent law changes, are affected from long waiting times. Therefore Prof. Kyo – professor and chief of the Department for Therapeutic Strategy for Heart Failure at the University of Tokyo Hospital - plans to establish a VAD program with the EXCOR® Pediatric device provided by the German company Berlin Heart. The system bridges the time for severely ill patients until a donor heart can be found. It is placed outside the body, cannulae are connected to the heart as it replaces the heart's function of pumping blood.
Depending on the indication, the system supports the heart’s function for short- or long-term use as well as providing single or bi-ventricular assistance.

And it is not only University of Tokyo Hospital which in future will save the lives of Japanese little ones with the artificial heart EXCOR® Pediatric. Also centers like the Osaka University Hospital, the National Cerebral and Cardiovascular Center, Tokyo Women's Medical University and Kyushu University Hospital will implant the device to bridge the time until heart transplantation.

A Berlin Heart team of VAD specialists recently traveled to Tokyo in order to train and prepare the clinical staff on the EXCOR® Pediatric device. Besides providing theoretic information also hands-on training with the product and its driving unit took place.

In addition to the training, Dr. David Morales – an experienced EXCOR® Pediatric surgeon from Texas Children’s Hospital in the USA – lectured on timing, patient selection and the handling of the device. Furthermore, Dr. Jason Chang from the Taipeh Veterans General Hospital, presented an EXCOR® Pediatric case report. As a conclusion Prof. Kyo once again mentioned the importance of the device: „Our patients and we are relying on the ventricular assist device from Germany. It is the only chance of survival for children suffering from heart failure“. He also appealed to the federal department responsible for regulatory issues in Japan, the Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices Agency (PMDA), to approve the EXCOR® Pediatric system in order to make it available. As long as there is no approval, the device can only be implanted after receiving - time-consuming - special permission.

About EXCOR®
EXCOR is a paracorporeal ventricular assist device for patients of all age groups, from newborns to adults. It is used for short-, mid- and long-term cardiac support and can support failing hearts for any duration from a couple of days to several months and years. Since the first implantation in 1988 EXCOR has been implanted in more than 2.000 patients worldwide.

About Berlin Heart
Berlin Heart GmbH is the only company worldwide that develops, produces, and distributes implantable and external ventricular assist devices for patients of every age and body size. The company is the market leader in Germany and Europe. EXCOR® is currently under clinical investigation for pediatric use in USA. All other products are not FDA approved.

Berlin Heart GmbH
Kerstin Unkel
Wiesenweg 10
12247 Berlin Germany

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