Images and Case Reports in Heart Failure Utilization of Cardiac Computed Tomography Angiography for the Diagnosis of Left Ventricular Assist Device Thrombosis

The use of left ventricular assist devices (LVADs) in themanagement of advanced heart failure has grown sub-stantially in recent years, with implantation of these devices increasing 10-fold since the approval of a continuous-flow device for destination therapy in January 2010. With the significant increase in use of this technology comes the potential for an increased incidence of complications associ-ated with these devices. One such complication that can be fatal if not urgently recognized is device thrombosis, which has been reported to occur in approximately 1 % of patients receiving the HeartMate II LVAD.1 Cardiologists, radiolo-gists, and other health care professionals must become increas-ingly more adept at diagnosing this complication to allow rapid institution of appropriate therapy. We report a case of a patient presenting with LVAD thrombosis diagnosed with cardiac computed tomography angiography (CTA)