Worldwide biggest pediatric study shows strong significant improvement in survival of high-risk patients below 5 kg and 10 kg on EXCOR® Pediatric. Using the Berlin Heart database, Miera et al. compared EXCOR implantation data from more than 1.800 pediatric VAD-patients of the years 2000 to 2017. The result: the overall survival of patients below 5 kg increased from 51 % (2000-2012) to

65 % (2013-2017) and for patients with a weight from 5 to 10 kg from 74 % to 78 %. This indicates that not only the ventricular assist device therapy with EXCOR Pediatric has improved for patients weighing below 10 kg, but also greater center experience, the introduction of the EXCOR 15-ml pump, a faster decision for an implantation and more prudent patient selection may all contribute to increased survival rates. All the more remarkable is the fact, that all EXCOR Pediatric implantations worldwide have been analyzed and not just data of "high-volume centers".