Background: Women comprise approximately one-third of the advanced heart failure population but may receive fewer advanced heart failure therapies including left ventricular assist devices (LVADs). During the early pulsatile-flow device era, women had higher post-LVAD mortality and increased complications. However, knowledge about these differences in the continuous-flow device era is limited. Therefore, we sought to explore temporal trends in LVAD utilization and post-LVAD mortality by sex. Methods and Results: Patients with LVAD implantation from 2004 to 2016 were identified using the Nationwide Inpatient Sample. Trends in LVAD utilization and post-LVAD inpatient mortality were compared by sex and device era. Although LVADs are being increasingly utilized for patients with advanced systolic heart failure, women continue to represent a smaller proportion of LVAD recipients—25.8% in 2004 to 21.9% in 2016 ( P for trend, 0.91). Women had increased inpatient mortality after LVAD implantation compared with men in the pulsatile-flow era (46.9% versus 31.1%, P <0.0001) but not in the continuous-flow era (13.3% versus 12.1%, P =0.27; P for interaction=0.0002). Inpatient mortality decreased for both sexes over time after LVAD, with a sharp fall in 2008 to 2009. Female sex was independently associated with increased post-LVAD inpatient mortality beyond adjustment for demographics and risk factors during the pulsatile-flow era (odds ratio, 2.13; 95% CI, 1.45–3.10; P <0.0001) but not during the continuous-flow era (1.18; 0.93–1.48; P =0.16). Conclusions: Although utilization of LVAD therapy increased over time for both sexes, LVAD implantation remains stably lower in women, which may suggest a potential underutilization of this potentially life-saving therapy. Prospective studies are needed to confirm these findings.

On the basis of studies in experimental animals demonstrating that AdVEGF121, an E1(-)E3(-) serotype 5 adenovirus coding the 121 isoform of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), could mediate the generation of new blood vessels and reverse coronary ischemia, a clinical study of direct myocardial administration of AdVEGF121 was initiated in patients with late-stage, diffuse coronary artery disease. This study provides long-term (median, 11.8 years) follow-up on these patients. From 1997 to 1999, AdVEGF121 was administered by direct myocardial injection to an area of reversible ischemia in 31 patients with severe coronary disease, either as an adjunct to conventional coronary artery bypass grafting (group A) or as minimally invasive sole (MIS) therapy, using a minithoracotomy (group B). There was no control group; the study participants served as the control subjects. The 5- and 10-year survival was 10 of 15 (67%) and 6 of 15 (40%) for the group A patients, and 11 of 16 (69%) and 5 of 16 (31%) for group B sole therapy patients, respectively. In comparison, maximal medical therapy in comparable groups in the literature have a 3- to 5-year survival rate of 52 to 59%. For the survivors, the angina score for group A was 3.4±0.5 at time 0 and 1.9±1.0 at last follow-up, and for group B it was 3.4±0.6 and 2.0±1.1, respectively. The incidences of malignancy and retinopathy were no greater than that expected for the age-matched general population. We conclude that adenovirus-mediated VEGF direct myocardial administration to patients with severe coronary artery disease is safe, and future larger trials are warranted to assess efficacy.

Objective: The objective of this study was to compare safety and clinical effectiveness of negative-pressure wound therapy (NPWT) with traditional wound therapy for managing noninfected open chests with delayed sternal closure after cardiac surgery.Methods: From January 2000 to July 2015, 452 of 47,325 patients who underwent full sternotomy left the operating room with a noninfected open chest (0.96%), managed using NPWT in 214-with frequency of use rapidly increasing to near 100%-and traditionally in 238. Predominant indications for open-chest management were uncontrolled coagulopathy or hemodynamic compromise on attempted chest closure. Weighted propensity-score matching was used to assess in-hospital complications and time-related survival.Results: NPWT and traditionally managed patients had similar high-risk preoperative profiles. Most underwent reoperations (63% of the NPWT group and 57% of the traditional group), and 21% versus 25% were emergency procedures. Reexplorations for bleeding were less common with NPWT versus traditional wound therapy (n ¼ 63 [29%] vs 104 [44%], P ¼ .002). Median duration of open-chest to definitive sternal closure was 3.5 days for NPWT versus 3.1 for traditionally managed patients (P[log rank] ¼ .07). Seven patients (3.3%) were converted from NPWT to traditional therapy because of hemodynamic intolerance and 6 (2.5%) from traditional to NPWT. No NPWT-related cardiovascular injuries occurred. Among matched patients, NPWT was associated with better early survival (61% vs 44% at 6 months; P ¼ .02).Conclusions: NPWT is safe and effective for managing noninfected open chests after cardiac surgery. By facilitating open-chest management and potentially improving outcomes, it has become our therapy of choice and perhaps has lowered our threshold for leaving the chest open after cardiac surgery.

Hydrogels are promising materials for soft and implantable strain sensors owing to their large compliance (E < 100 kPa) and significant extensibility (ε max > 500%) compared with other polymer networks. Further, hydrogels can be functionalized to seamlessly integrate with many types of tissues. However, most current methods attempt to imbue additional electronic functionality to structural hydrogel materials by incorporating fillers with orthogonal properties such as electronic or mixed ionic conduction. Although composite strategies may improve performance or facilitate heterogeneous integration with downstream hardware, composites complicate the path for regulatory approval and may compromise the otherwise compelling properties of the underlying structural material. Herein, hydrogel strain sensors composed of genipin‐crosslinked gelatin and dopamine‐functionalized poly(ethylene glycol) for in vivo monitoring of cardiac function are reported. By measuring their impedance only in their resistive regime (>10 kHz), hysteresis is reduced and the resulting gauge factor is increased by ≈50× to 1.02 ± 0.05 and 1.46 ± 0.05 from ≈0.03 to 0.05 for PEG‐Dopa and genipin‐crosslinked gelatin, respectively. Adhesion and in vivo biocompatibility are studied to support implementation of strain sensors for monitoring cardiac output in porcine models. Impedance‐based strain sensing in the kilohertz regime simplifies the piezoresistive behavior of these materials and expands the range of hydrogel‐based strain sensors.

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