Western Baptist Hospital offers several specialized services for heart transplant patients, including ventricular assist technology and right heart biopsies.

Ventricular Assist Technology

People who need a heart transplant often have to wait a long time before a suitable donor heart becomes available. During the wait, the patient's heart may continue to deteriorate, until it is unable to pump enough blood to sustain life. Ventricular assist technology can temporarily take over the pumping function of the weakened heart and serve as a bridge to transplant.

Western Baptist Hospital offers the ABIOMED BVS Bi-Ventricular Support System for patients awaiting heart transplants. This external, temporary artificial heart completely takes over for the heart's pumping function. Patients who are on the Bi-Ventricular Support System are cared for in the hospital's Intensive Care Unit until a donor heart becomes available. Then, they are moved by air ambulance to the heart transplant center at Jewish Hospital in Louisville or Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville.

Right Heart Biopsies

Right heart biopsies are performed on heart transplant patients to see whether the body is rejecting the new heart. At Western Baptist Hospital, right heart biopsies are performed in the Cardiac Catheterization Laboratories.

During the biopsy, a tiny piece of heart tissue (myocardium) is removed using a small pincer-like device called a bioptome. The biopsy process begins by placing the bioptome into a large vein in the neck or groin. Using fluoroscopy to guide it, the bioptome tip is moved through the vein until it is properly positioned in the heart. Then the tip's jaws are opened and closed around a piece of heart muscle the size of a few grains of rice. The bioptome is then removed from the body, and the piece of heart tissue is removed. This process is repeated several times until three to five tissue samples are collected.

Once the tissue samples are collected, they are analyzed in Western Baptist Hospital's laboratory to see if the patient's body is accepting or rejecting the new heart. The heart transplant center where the patient received his or her new heart is sent the findings of the analysis, so that appropriate steps can be taken if the body is in rejection.

By making ventricular assist technology and right heart biopsies available, Western Baptist makes it easier for heart transplant patients and their families to receive the care they need close to home.