This grant will fund St Vincent’s Cardiology team’s use of Impella Heart Pumps and Intra-vascular lithroscopy to assist patients with advanced heart failure or experiencing cardiogenic shock caused by heart attacks.
At St Vincent’s, the interventional cardiologists are specifically interested in providing cardiac support with Impella devices to patients who would otherwise not survive due to severe heart failure. This device allows enough time and heart stability to fix blockages in coronary arteries with stents, with the aim of improving heart function.
Intra-vascular lithotripsy (IVL-Shockwave) is a novel technique, currently not funded by Medicare, that enables surgeons to use a balloon to deliver a high frequency ultrasound ‘pulse’ from inside the artery. This breaks up calcified plaque and enables surgeons to implant stents where they were previously unable to do so. Once again, St Vincent’s has led the way in innovation and technology, with the first two procedures in NSW using IVL-Shockwave performed last year by Dr David Roy.
