|
Heart Disease In The News New pacing therapy for heart failure In this week's issue of The New England Journal of Medicine, investigators report that a special pacing technique to resynchronize the muscle contraction of the diseased heart significantly improves the symptoms of heart failure. Many patients with heart failure have abnormalities in their cardiac electrical system that causes their already weak heart muscle to beat in a discoordinated fashion. This inefficient muscle contraction wastes the heart's precious energy, and causes the heart failure to worsen. New investigational pacemakers stimulate several sites in the ventricles (instead of just one site,) thus causing the heart to beat in a more coordinated, energy-efficient, and effective manner. In the study published this week, the benefits of this "resynchronization pacing" was documented in 48 patients with severe heart failure. Two U.S. companies (Guidant and Medtronic) have submitted for FDA approval of devices that will offer such therapy for patients with heart failure. |
Links related to heart failure
What do you think? Enter the Heart Disease Forum:
