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Objectives
Premises |
| Project objectives Cardiovascular disease
(CVD) statistically is today the leading cause of mortality in the
population: approximately 4 million long-lasting heart disease people
die each year in Europe, with estimated 400000 yearly new diagnosed
cases only in US. According with American Heart Association, 89000
valve replacements, 553000 bypass and 92000 open-heart surgery interventions
were performed in US in 1997. Being available only 2000 heart donors
per year, surgical research has focused on cardiac assist device implantation
as a permanent alternative to heart transplant. |
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Many biomedical devices, as VAD Systems
(Ventricular Assist Devices), are designed to provide a bridge to
transplantation, becoming a potential long-term help or permanent
therapy for patients awaiting a heart transplant or who are not candidates
for cardiac surgery. To date, 129 centres worldwide have implanted
791 devices as an intermediate step to transplantation, with a longest
support duration of 726 days. Of these patients around of 70% survived
to transplant or removal of the device with recovery of the native
heart. However, because the donor heart supply is so limited, the
number of implanted devices and patients that daily need cardiac implantation
tend to increase. Consequently, reliability and lifetime of
implanted devices become more and more important and are such to invest
in the immediate future an enormous social relevance. |
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