Remission of Chronic Anthracycline-Induced Heart Failure with Support from a Continuous-Flow Left Ventricular Assist Device

We report the case of a patient who had chronic anthracycline-induced cardiomyopathy that was reversed after treatment with a left ventricular assist device. A 29-year-old woman had undergone anthracycline-based chemotherapy as a teenager in 1991 and 7992 and received a diagnosis of dilated cardiomyopathy 10 years later. Optimal medical therapy had initially controlled the symptoms of heart failure. However, in June 2006, the symptoms worsened to New York Heart Association functional class IV status. We implanted a continuous-flow left ventricular assist device as a bridge to cardiac transplantation; of note, a left ventricular core biopsy at that time showed no replacement fibrosis. The patient's clinical status improved thereafter, enabling left ventricular assist device explantation after 17 months. To our knowledge, this is the first report of the use of left ventricular assist device support to reverse chronic anthracycline-induced heart failure. (Tex Heart Inst J 2012;39(4):554-6)