Internal medicine

Heart failure

Ventricular assist device

Cardiology

Political science

Heart transplantation

MEDLINE

Destination therapy

Scopus

Transplantation

Medicine

The Journal of Heart and Lung Transplantation

Mechanical circulatory support (MCS) evolved from an engineering dream to clinical reality during the 1980s when increasing numbers of patients were dying on heart transplant wait lists. Following the Randomized Evaluation of Mechanical Assistance for the Treatment of Congestive Heart Failure Trial,1 the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a pulsatile implantable left ventricular assist device (LVAD) for long-term implantation in 2002. When the FDA approved the first US continuous flow (CF) LVAD in 2008, the landscape had changed dramatically.

American Association for Thoracic Surgery/International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation guidelines on selected topics in mechanical circulatory support