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Despite increasing use of mechanical circulatory support in children, experience with biventricular device implantation remains limited. We describe our experience using the HeartWare HVAD to provide biventricular support to three patients and compare these patients with five patients supported with HeartWare left ventricular assist device (LVAD). At the end of the study period, all three biventricular assist device (BiVAD) patients had been transplanted and were alive. LVAD patients were out of bed and ambulating a median of 10.5 days postimplantation. The BiVAD patients were out of bed a median of 31 days postimplantation. Pediatric patients with both left ventricular and biventricular heart failure can be successfully bridged to transplantation with the HeartWare HVAD. Rapid improvement in functional status following HVAD implantation for isolated left ventricular support is seen. Patients supported with BiVAD also demonstrate functional recovery, albeit more modestly. In the absence of infection, systemic inflammatory response raises concern for inadequate support.

On the day of his birth in 1971, David Vetter was "temporarily" placed in a sterile isolator to wait for a bone marrow donor who would cure his Severe Combined Immunodeficiency Syndrome. After enduring 12 years in isolation, David, now known to the world as "The Boy in the Bubble", received a bone marrow transplant from his unmatched sister and died 4 months later. Like Severe Combined Immunodeficiency Syndrome, pediatric heart failure is a rare and life-threatening condition for which organ transplantation is often the only option for survival. Nearly 15 years ago, the Berlin Heart EXCOR ventricular assist device was developed, as the isolator was for David, to be a bridge to transplantation for infants and children with unstable heart failure. Yet, when symptoms progress faster than the patient's suitability for transplant can be evaluated, this device may be implanted as a "bridge-to-decision" while a transplant evaluation is completed. Therein lies the potential for history to repeat itself. As biomedical science carries us ever forward in our ability to sustain life, we must always bear in mind that the miraculous EXCOR must not be a machine that simply sustains the circulation. It must be, and always remain, a bridge to somewhere.