Atlanta A new kind of heart pump that helps people with heart failure survive was surgically implanted for the first time in the United States by doctors at Emory University Hospital. The device is smaller and more comfortable.
Dr. Mani Daneshmand, a cardiothoracic surgeon at Emory who is in charge of the clinical trial investigating the new pump, referred to as a ventricular assist device, or VAD, under the brand name BrioVAD System, said it’s encouraging to see innovation is still occurring.
Daneshmand has spent around two decades working with cardiac pumps. How can we prevent these individuals from dying? It is both a high and a low bar. We have now discovered a way to prevent their death. Let’s make them appreciate life more now.
In order to assist the heart in pumping blood, VADs—mechanical pumps—are surgically placed inside the chest. For individuals with heart failure who are not improving with alternative therapies including medicine, surgery, or a pacemaker, the VAD may be a lifesaver. For patients awaiting a heart transplant, they can potentially act as a bridge.
VADs have historically been large and unwieldy, and there is a significant chance of complications, such as infections at the location where the device’s cable leaves the body.The gadget must be implanted during significant open heart surgery. A controller unit and battery pack are worn outside the body and connected to the VAD through a tiny skin incision, but the device itself is implanted inside the heart.
Compared to previous iterations of the device, significant advancements in recent decades have allowed patients to live longer, with fewer difficulties, and with a higher quality of life.
Daneshmand is optimistic that the BrioVAD System will represent yet another significant advancement in medical care. Compared to previous iterations of the gadget, it will be more pleasant to wear and incorporates features intended to minimize complications.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the start of clinical trials earlier this year, and Emory was the first study site to employ the BrioVAD System on a patient. Emory and other healthcare facilities nationwide, such as Duke University, the University of Chicago, and the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, will monitor the BrioVAD System’s efficacy and safety as part of a clinical trial. In order to treat end-stage heart failure, they will contrast the novel gadget with other available treatments.
Over the course of two to three years, the study will involve roughly 750 individuals. BrioHealth Solutions, based in Massachusetts, created BrioVAD.
According to Daneshmand, the study’s objective is to demonstrate that this product functions on par with conventional treatments, if not better. Researchers will explore for further significant benefits, like reduced adverse effects and comfort and convenience of usage.
According to Daneshmand, the BrioVAD pump is smaller than the ones that are already on the market, which makes it easier to install and might be less work to remove in the event that a VAD patient has a heart transplant in the future.
According to Daneshmand, the VAD pump has a special design that is kinder to the heart and replicates the natural rhythm of a human pulse.
According to him, the wearable components are made with the patient’s experience in mind. The BrioVAD has a smaller controller with the backup battery built in, so the patient only needs to connect to one, lighter battery instead of the two big, heavy batteries that are now provided with the commercially available VAD.
I’m hoping that the design modifications will eventually show that patients have fewer infections and problems, and that some of the improvements are useful. They are not need to carry two large, bulky batteries. Their driveline isn’t large and cumbersome. One of theirs is little and bendable. There is stuff the FDA doesn t look into whether the patients prefer two batteries or one, but when we are taking care of patients, it does make a different for them, all of these things impact quality of life.
An estimated 6.2 million Americans are currently living with heart failure when your heart fails to pump blood as it should. Heart failure is responsible for one in eight deaths in the U.S. per year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Recent data shows patients with advanced heart failure who receive a heart pump can survive five years and beyond.
Daneshmand said Emory Healthcare is leading the nation in implanting VADs, with physicians implanting between 80 and 100 of them every year.
Daneshmand said the patient who received the first BrioVAD System is in her early 30s, doing very well, and has been discharged. She has dilated cardiomyopathy, or DCM, a condition that causes the heart to enlarge and weaken, making it difficult to pump blood effectively.
As her health improves, she may be a candidate for a heart transplant down the road, he said.
It is the most satisfying thing in the world to take someone who is sick and make them better, he said. There is no greater high than when a patient you saw who was sick and comes back and because of your team s actions, they are better. … She has an energy that is second to none. I think she will continue to do very well.
Daneshmand said he has seen many iterations of the pump over the past two-plus decades.
He said what s widely available today is great, but, not perfect.
It s an exciting time to be in this space, he said. The first iteration I ever worked with was a good pump for the time. It was something people could go home with and be supported but it was loud, it was noisy, reliably broke and patients needed multiple operations to be able to keep them alive, he said.
–By Helena Oliviero, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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