Successful transatlantic EXCOR® air ambulance transportations

Berlin, 30 March 2011. Four young children suffering from severe heart failure and consequently supported by the EXCOR® ventricular assist device, were safely and successfully transported by aircraft during the last months.

The so-called artificial heart was implanted in order to assist the patient’s heart function of pumping blood through the body. As a life-saving device, it bridges the time until a donor heart is found and transplantation becomes possible.

In the case of the two-year-old girl from Novosibirsk (Russia) a matching donor heart was found in Italy. Due to the function of the EXCOR® heart assist device, the child was doing really well when she was transported to Bergamo in Italy beginning of February. Her mother, a team of clinical staff and specialists for patient management and handling the EXCOR® ventricular assist device, accompanied the little patient on her transportation to Italy, where finally the heart transplantation was carried out.

Safe and without any complications, the transatlantic air ambulance transportation of a young American woman succeeded from Marseille to Denver, Colorado (USA). The girl was suffering from a severe heart failure. During her stay in France, her condition became increasingly worse and the doctors in Marseille concluded that the only way of keeping her alive would be an implantation of an EXCOR® device. Within three weeks after implantation the patient was able to be transferred on a 13-hour flight back home, and was treated by local doctors at Denver Children’s Hospital, where she eventually received a heart transplant. Just recently two more children who were being supported with the device were transferred from implanting centers within the US to the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh for further management. The first patient implanted in Massachusetts had been on the device for more than four months before being transported via fixed wing air ambulance accompanied by a medical team from Pittsburgh. The second patient implanted in New York was transported after more than 5 months of support by the same medical team with the same aircraft. Both patients were transported safely, without any complications and were eventually transplanted. Dr. Peter Wearden, the pediatric cardiac and transplant surgeon at the Children’s’ Hospital of Pittsburgh who headed the medical transport team has plans for his center to become a national referral center for pediatric patients on mechanical circulatory support awaiting cardiac transplantation. Dr. Wearden commented, “Having implanted nearly 20 pediatric patients with the EXCOR® Pediatric VAD system, this therapy has become a very important part of our practice and a viable option for the pediatric population with heart failure”. “This experience and our proven ability to safely transport patients on mechanical circulatory support offer additional options for this population and their families”.

Berlin Heart in Germany, as the producer and distributor of the EXCOR® system is proud that the heart assist device is applicable and safe even for such long distance flights. „We wish these patients all the best and hope that they get better soon. Furthermore we are happy that the EXCOR® device once more has proven to be reliable even under complicated circumstances“, says Dr. Stefan Thamasett, General Manager of the Berlin Heart company. A scientific publication about the long distance air transportation was already published last year. (Tissot, C. et al., First Pediatric transatlantic air ambulance transportation on a Berlin Heart EXCOR left ventricular assist device as a bridge to transplantation, Pediatr Crit Care Med. 2010 Mar; 11(2):e24-5).

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.

About EXCOR®
EXCOR® is a para-corporeal 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.

EXCOR® is currently under clinical investigation for paediatric use in USA. All other products are not FDA approved.

Berlin Heart GmbH
Kerstin Unkel
Wiesenweg 10
12247 Berlin

This release was published on openPR.