Cognitive outcomes in pediatric heart transplant recipients bridged to transplantation with ventricular assist devices.

Background: Ventricular assist devices (VADs) have been associated with high rates of neurologic injury in pediatric patients during the period of support, but the delayed consequences of this type of injury have not been described in the literature.

Methods: In this study we assess cognitive outcomes with indices of general intellectual functioning, including working memory, processing speed, perceptual reasoning and verbal comprehension, for pediatric heart transplant recipients who required VAD support as a bridge to transplant (n = 9). We present an aggregate of these VAD patients combined with heart transplant recipients who did not require mechanical circulatory support (n = 11), and compare the performance of all transplant patients (n = 20) to typically developing, healthy comparators (n = 12).