About 90 percent of patients with advanced heart failure can be managed by a left ventricular assist device (LVAD). But for the 5 to 10 percent of patients with biventricular failure, an LVAD is not adequate. These patients have no option but a heart transplant or the current version of a total artificial heart.
With a 46 percent projected increase nationwide in patients living with heart failure between 2014 and 2030, the need to provide effective care for this patient population has taken on new urgency.
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has shattered the processes meticulously developed over years by which physicians delivered quality care for patients with cirrhosis. COVID-19 has exposed deep flaws in the structural and process measures developed to follow patients, evaluate disease status and response to therapy, and screen for complications, each of which depends upon frequent physical patient-physician interaction.
For critically ill patients with advanced heart or lung failure, extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) is available at Baylor University Medical Center and three other Baylor Scott & White Health (BSWH) medical centers. A systemwide coordinated care initiative that aligned the services at these hospitals in North and Central Texas has improved ECMO outcomes across all sites, including a 32 percent reduction in overall mortality.
Baylor Scott & White Research Institute researcher Erxi Wu, Ph.D. recently co-authored a paper published in Nature Communications, demonstrating the successful creation of a mouse model of pure autonomic dysfunction caused by α-Syn pathology. Researchers believe this model could help establish mechanistic links between the transmission of pathological α-Syn and the cardinal features of autonomic dysfunction in α-Synucleinopathy.
