May 23, 2007 — MicroMed Cardiovascular Inc. has announced that on Monday, May 14, 2007, doctors at Freeman Hospital in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, successfully implanted the latest design DeBakey VAD "X2" pump in a 59-year-old man.
"I'm proud to say that yesterday we implanted a MicroMed Cardiovascular, Inc. DeBakey ventricular assist device in a patient with severe ischemic cardiomyopathy and he's doing very well,” said the implanting surgeon, Dr. Stephen C. Clark. “Less than 24 hours after the surgery the patient is awake and alert and is quite happy with the results,"
This implant marks the initial implant for the UK market of the latest X2 design of the MicroMed DeBakey VAD. The product provides a viable therapy option for patients who are too sick to survive until a donor heart can be found.
The DeBakey VAD is a very small VAD that was jointly developed by the famed heart surgeon Dr. Michael E. DeBakey, Dr. George Noon, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The DeBakey VAD is an implantable axial flow device designed to provide long term, improved quality of life for patients who suffer from severe heart failure. It is the only device that provides accurate, real-time flow measurement improving the clinicians' patient care. It is CE-Mark approved in Europe for Bridge-to-Transplant (BTT), Destination Therapy (DT), and pediatric use with the DeBakey VAD Child.