Tugging at the Heartstrings [AP-S Turnstile]

Each year, there are some 80,000 American patients with heart failure [1], who need either a heart transplant or a ventricular assist device (VAD). Since fewer than 2,500 heart transplants [2] are performed every year because of a shortage of donors and high costs associated with transplant surgeries, there is a pressing need for improved VADs. When the first-generation implantable VADs were approved [1] by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1994, the expectation was that they would keep the patient alive for a few months while a suitable donor was found. With better VAD technologies, patients with these heart pumps can now survive for five or more years [1]. Former Vice President Dick Cheney is one of these VAD recipients.