Key Points The use of percutaneous mechanical support devices is becoming more embedded within the therapeutic armamentarium for patients presenting with decompensated heart failure, cardiogenic shock, and patients undergoing high risk PCI. The Aortix device offers a new approach to percutaneous support that appears to be safe to implement and overcomes some of the drawbacks of the extant devices. Further investigation remains warranted to evaluate its ultimate utility and place among the approach to the patient in need of circulatory support.

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Key Points For symptomatic and asymptomatic patient with high or intermediate risk of CEA complications, CAS with the use of EPDs has a very low rate of in‐hospital stroke and death There is no statistically significant difference in ipsilateral stroke/TIA and any stroke/TIA between the different device platforms Further efforts to assess differences between EPD devices would likely need to involve a surrogate endpoint due to the very low rates of clinical events

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heart failure patients who undergo more adequate inpatient diuresis, as measured by clinically measured weight loss, would have better outcomes than those patients without measurable weight loss. Methods: To test this hypothesis, a retrospective analysis was performed on all Froedtert hospital admissions from July 2015 to July 2016. Patients who were admitted with a primary discharge diagnosis of acute decompensated heart failure were eligible to be part of the analysis. Patients were treated according to attending discretion. Admission and discharge weights were obtained for each patient and net weight loss was obtained. Patients were divided into two groups, one group of patients with net negative weight loss during admission and a second group of patients without weight loss (0 weight change or net positive). For these two groups, 30 day all cause unplanned readmission %'s were calculated. In addition, in hospital mortality as well as length of stay (LOS) index (observed LOS/expected LOS) were also calculated (Expected values calculated using Vizient AMC Hospital Risk Models). Results: A total of 302 patients were analyzed in this study and no patients were excluded. 250 patients were in the weight loss group and 52 were in the no net weight loss group. Thirty day unplanned readmission rates were 19.6% in the weight loss group and 25%. Length of stay index was longer in the weight loss group (0.92) vs non weight loss group (0.76) while in hospital mortality was lower in the weight loss group (0.27) vs non weight loss group (0.49). Conclusion: Based on this initial data, there appears to be a trend toward lower readmission rates and lower mortality with measured weight loss at the cost of longer LOS. This suggests that during admissions, diuresis to a net weight loss is more indicative of more adequate diuresis and therefore lower readmission risk. Given costs of readmission, this trend could indicate that increased LOS could be beneficial at reducing costs by reducing readmissions. Currently we are looking further into the data to see specifically how many readmissions were strictly for heart failure. We are also looking into a cost analysis comparing readmission costs vs the increased LOS to determine if there is cost savings.