What Causes Low Heart Rate?
It's a bridging surgery till he gets a donor for transplant.
Detailed Answer:
Hello dear,
Thank you for choosing HealthcareMagic for your query.
I am a cardiologist and would be answering your query.
Firstly sorry to hear about all the concerns for your son.
Secondly, don't panic, LVAD has excellent success rates and if implanted by skillful hands can play wonders.
The left ventricle of the heart is the chamber which is responsible for pumping blood through out the body. Due to multiple heart attacks and surgeries(CABG) most likely the ejection fraction of your son's heart(Amount of blood pumped out of heart every time it contracts) have dropped below 15% (Normal is 55-60%).
Reduced ejection fraction is responsible for reduced blood supply to coronaries. As there is less blood in coronaries heart will land up in bradycardia.
LVAD pulls blood from the left ventricle and pumps it into the aorta which further distributes it in the whole body.
As he has bradycardia also so without LVAD he has a risk of having a sudden cardiac arrest due to the failure of heart pump(as muscles have highly compromised blood supply).
An LVAD restores blood flow through his heart which has been weakened by disease. This helps to relieve symptoms which he is having.
Basically, it is a bridging surgery. Till he gets a donor for heart transplant this machine will help his body and would prevent cardiac arrest.
My advice would be to go for the surgery at the earliest.
Please attach/upload his 2D echo report, EKG, and other relevant documents, I need to go through them before giving any further opinion.
Hope the answer helped you and comforted you.
Waiting for reports.
Regards.