Left ventricular unloading to facilitate ventricular remodelling in heart failure: A narrative review of mechanical circulatory support

Abstract

Heart failure represents a dynamic clinical challenge with the continuous rise of a multi-morbid and ageing population. Yet, the evolving nature of mechanical circulatory support offers a variety of means to manage candidates who might benefit from such interventions. This narrative review focuses on the role of the main mechanical circulatory support devices, such as ventricular assist device, extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, Impella and TandemHeart, in the physiological process of ventricular unloading and remodelling in heart failure, highlighting their characteristics, mechanism and clinical outcomes. The outcome measures described include physiological changes (i.e., stroke volume or preload and afterload), intracardiac pressure (i.e., end-diastolic pressure) and extracardiac pressure (i.e., pulmonary capillary wedge pressure). Overall, all the above mechanical circulatory support strategies can facilitate the unloading of the ventricular failure through different mechanisms, which subsequently affects the ventricular remodelling process. These physiological changes start immediately after ventricular assist device implantation. The devices are indicated in different but overlapping populations and operate in distinctive ways; yet, they have evidenced performance to a favourable standard to improve cardiac function in heart failure, although this proved variable for different devices, and further high-quality trials are vital to assess their clinical outcomes further. Both Impella and TandemHeart are indicated mainly in cardiogenic shock and high-risk percutaneous coronary intervention patients; at the time the literature was evaluated, both devices were found to yield a significant improvement in haemodynamics but not in survival. Nevertheless, the choice of device strategy should be based on individual patient factors, including indication, to optimize clinical outcomes.

Keywords: heart failure; left ventricular unloading; mechanical circulatory support; ventricular remodelling.