Category: Texas Heart Institute

Bud Frazier, MD discusses LVADs (Left Ventricular Assist Devices)

Interviewed By Steven Greer, MD

Dr. Frazier discusses ventricular assist devices such as the Thoratec HeartMate 2.

Bud Frazier, MD discusses Robert Jarvik and the Lipitor TV ads

So, What Does Jarvik Do? A Heart Surgeon Explains

originally posted on The WSJ.com health blog  February 8, 2008

By Scott Hensley

Everyone’s been pointing out lately that Robert Jarvik, the doctor who is the face of Pfizer’s Lipitor ads, has never practiced medicine. So what does the guy do? O.H. “Bud” Frazier, a big-time surgeon at the Texas Heart Institute explains in the video below, which comes to us courtesy of the Healthcare Channel.

Jarvik is an inventor who has created devices to assist or replace failing hearts.

“Rob is a lot of things,” Frazier says in the video. “He’s pretty good on TV, it looks like. He’s a pretty good actor. But he’s also a very good machinist.”

Frazier calls Jarvik “a wonderful, talented person” and says he has made some key advances in the field. Patients who receive Jarvik’s devices tend to fare relatively well, provided they survive their hospital stay, according to Frazier.

But Jarvik faces competition from Thoratec, a company that also makes devices for patients with failing hearts. Frazier notes that a Thoratec device called Heartmate II is likely to be approved by the FDA any day now, while a pump made by Jarvik has much further to go before it passes FDA muster.

Bud Frazier, MD: LVAD update

July 20th

Former Vice President Dick Cheney recently underwent surgery to receive a left ventricular assist device (LVAD) to treat his worsening heart failure. He benefited from the newly FDA-approved indication called destination therapy that allows for insurance reimbursement for patients who are not on a heart transplant list. Mr. Cheney received Thoratec’s (THOR) HeartMate 2 device.

The Healthcare Channel interviewed the pioneer of HeartMate 2 and many other LVADs, Dr. Bud Frazier in Texas. Topics discussed were:

  • Update on the adoption of HeartMate 2
  • Problems with a bleeding disorder caused by LVADs called impaired von Willebrand Factor-Dependent Platelet Aggregation
  • Treatment of stroke caused by LVADs
  • Other LVADs close to U.S. approval, notably the HeartWare and the Terumo devices

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