Le Bonheur Children’s Heart Institute offers the most advanced treatment options for children, adolescents and adults with complex and uncorrectable congenital or acquired heart disease, including cardiomyopathies.
Heart failure is a term that means the heart does not sufficiently pump enough blood throughout the body. Treatment can vary from medication to the implantation of devices, like a ventricular assist device (VAD), and heart transplantation.
Why Le Bonheur Children’s?
- Our Heart Transplant program, led by Medical Director Jeffrey A. Towbin, MD, and Surgical Director Umar Boston, MD, is approved by the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS).
- The average survival rates of heart surgeries at Le Bonheur are considerably higher than the national average.
Heart Failure Team
The program offers individualized care by a multidisciplinary team that includes:
- specially-trained pediatric cardiologists
- pediatric cardiovascular transplant surgeons
- cardiac intensivists
- cardiac rehabilitation specialists
- cardiac physiologists
- cardiac catheterization and intervention specialists
- electrophysiologists
- specialists in non-invasive imaging including cardiac MRI and echocardiography
- pharmacists
- nurse practitioners and nurses
Research
We are committed to finding new and better ways to treat children with uncorrectable congenital heart disease. Research focuses include:
Therapeutic
- Future treatments in children with cardiomyopathy and heart failure
We are working to learn more about transplant rejection and viral causes of myocarditis, cardiomyopathies and transplant coronary disease. - Clinical trials
We are participants in multi-center and single center clinical trials of heart failure and transplant therapies.
Diagnostic
- Genetic testing and gene discovery
Our researchers are working to discover more about the mechanisms and genes responsible for cardiomyopathy and other causes of heart failure in children. - Cardiac MRI analysis
Our researchers are investigating the use of cardiac MRI for evaluation of cardiomyopathy type, inflammation and scar formation, as well as prognosis and risk stratification. - Metabolic features of cardiomyopathies
Investigators are working to uncover the metabolic features of cardiomyopathies and their diagnostic role as biomarkers and disease mechanisms. - Cardiac rehabilitation
Working closely with Le Bonheur's exercise physiologists, we are learning more about the role of cardiac rehabilitation in patients with heart failure and post-transplant. - Acquired cardiomyopathies
Researchers are looking into the various causes of acquired forms of cardiomyopathies and heart failure, some of which include cancer therapies, disease/myocarditis due to viruses and transplant rejection. - Artificial intelligence in diagnosis
We are investigating the role of artificial intelligence (AI) in early diagnosis, prediction of progression and outcomes in patients with cardiomyopathies, heart failure and heart transplants.
