Emergent decommissioning of HeartMate 3 for life-threatening hemorrhage.

ABSTRACT

Left ventricular assist devices are known for the treatment of heart failure. We present a patient who underwent emergent decommissioning of his left ventricular assist device after experiencing life-threatening hemorrhage. In this case, the patient's outflow graft was avulsed from his left subclavian artery. We used a covered stent to first exclude the outflow graft and an Amplatzer II plug (Abbott Cardiovascular) to then occlude the inflow cannula. Accessing the inflow cannula of the left ventricular assist device was challenging. In hindsight, we could have accessed and occluded the outflow graft via the left subclavian artery before deploying the covered stent.