Pump thrombus is a clinically important adverse event in patients receiving an HVAD, occurring at a rate of 0.08 events per patient-year. Significant risk factors for pump thrombosis include elevated blood pressure and sub-optimal anti-coagulation and anti-platelet therapies. This suggests that pump thrombus event rates could be reduced through careful adherence to patient management guidelines.

We sought to determine whether or not optimizing pancreas preservation, islet processing, and induction immunosuppression would facilitate sustained diabetes reversal after single-donor islet transplants. Islets were isolated from two-layer preserved pancreata, purified, cultured for 2 days; and transplanted into six C-peptide-negative, nonuremic, type 1 diabetic patients with hypoglycemia unawareness. Induction immunosuppression, which began 2 days pretransplant, included the Fc receptor nonbinding humanized anti-CD3 monoclonal antibody hOKT3c 1 (AlaAla) and sirolimus. Immunosuppression was maintained with sirolimus and reduced-dose tacrolimus. Of our six recipients, four achieved and maintained insulin independence with normal HbA1c levels and freedom from hypoglycemia; one had partial islet graft function; and one lost islet graft function 2 weeks post-transplant. The four insulin-independent patients showed prolonged CD4 + T-cell lymphocytopenia; inverted CD4:CD8 ratios; and increases in the percentage of CD4 + CD25 + T cells. These cells suppressed the in-vitro proliferative response to donor cells and, to a lesser extent, to third-party cells. Severe adverse events were limited to a transient rash in one recipient and to temporary neutropenia in three. Our preliminary results thus suggest that a combination of maximized viable islet yield, pretransplant islet culture, and preemptive immunosuppression can result in successful single-donor islet transplants.

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The use of left ventricular assist devices (LVADs) in treating patients with end stage heart failure has increased significantly in recent years, both as a bridge to transplant and as destination therapy in those who are ineligible for cardiac transplantation. This increase is based largely on the results of several recently completed clinical trials with the new second generation continuous flow devices that showed significant improvement in survival, functional capacity, and quality of life. Additional information on the use of the first generation and second generation LVADs has come from a recently released report spanning the years 2006–2009, from The Interagency Registry for Mechanical Circulatory Support (INTERMACS), a National Heart Lung and Blood Institute sponsored collaboration between the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Center for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) and the scientific community (1). This paper provides a review of the latest clinical trials and data from the INTERMACS registry with tight integration of the landmark molecular, cellular and genomic research that accompanies the reverse remodeling of the human heart in response to the LVAD and functional recovery that has been reported in a subset of these patients.