Heart patients may find this news to be of some relevance. A Henry Ford Hospital study claims that heart failure patients who apparently contract kidney failure after being given a mechanical heart pumping device are said to at an augmented threat of dying within the initial three years of surgery.
Study authors discovered that roughly 35 percent of patients who experienced kidney failure expired within 180 days post surgery as opposed to zero patients who did not contract kidney failure. The mortality rate apparently deteriorated to 52 percent at three years post-surgery for patients who contracted kidney failure as against 35 percent who did not experience kidney failure.
The study also illustrated that the kidney failure patients appeared to suffer longer stays in the intensive care unit and longer hospitalizations as compared to those who did not contract kidney failure post-surgery.
“The short-term and long-term survival of these patients is worrisome. Future study is needed to look at developing a mathematical model that could predict the risk of kidney failure in certain patient populations and lead to improved patient outcomes,” commented, Jeffrey Morgan, M.D., the study’s lead author and associate director of Henry Ford’s Circulatory Assist Device Program and Cardiac Transplantation.
The study tracked around 41 heart failure patients en suite with a left ventricular assist device, or LVAD, between March 2006 and June 2009 at Henry Ford. An LVAD is claimed to be a battery-operated pumping device surgical entrenched to aid the pumping capability of the heart.
Study authors appeared to compare the survival rates and hospitalizations of 15 patients who experienced kidney failure post surgery to the 26 patients who did not. Study authors discovered that survival considerably reduced among the kidney failure patients at 30 days, 180 days, one year and three years as opposed to patients who did not contract kidney failure post surgery. The kidney failure patients also seemed to spend an average of 15 days in the intensive as against seven days for the non kidney failure patients in the preliminary 30 days following surgery.
Dr. Morgan assumes that enhancement in patient selection and restricting a patient’s time on the cardio-pulmonary bypass machine could decrease the threat of patients developing kidney failure following surgery.
The study was presented at the International Society of Heart and Lung Transplant in Chicago.