The value of Stanford integrated psychosocial assessment for transplantation (SIPAT) in prediction of clinical outcomes following left ventricular assist device (LVAD) implantation

Background: The Stanford integrated psychosocial assessment for transplantation (SIPAT) is a validated psychosocial evaluation tool in the transplant population.

Objective: We evaluated SIPAT in predicting post-left ventricular assist device (LVAD) outcomes, including cumulative re-admissions, driveline infections, pump malfunction, pump thrombosis, gastrointestinal bleeding, major bleeding, stroke and right ventricular failure.

Methods: This retrospective study included 50 LVAD patients at an academic institution in the United States who had a pre-implant SIPAT score during the years 2015-2017. Patients were split into two groups based on SIPAT score, separating a "excellent"/"good" from a "minimally acceptable"/"poor" candidate. Poisson regression, using SIPAT as both a categorical and continuous variable, was used to compare the incidence rates of the primary outcome of cumulative re-admissions and secondary outcomes of LVAD complications.

Results: The patient cohort was predominantly male 93.5% vs 89.4% (p = 0.629) with a median age of 67.0 vs 58.0 years (p = 0.037), planned destination therapy 48.4% vs 68.4% (p = 0.242) and median LVAD follow-up time of 241 vs 379 days (p = 0.10) in the low- and high- SIPAT groups, respectively. SIPAT was not a significant predictor for cumulative re-admissions, but there was an association between higher SIPAT scores and major bleeding.

Conclusion: In this single-center retrospective study, SIPAT did not predict cumulative re-admissions. Further study is required to validate SIPAT before clinical implementation.