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White Heart

Sep 22
2011

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White Heart

Heart pump device of no help to cardiac patients

According to British researchers, high-risk cardiac patients undergoing an operation to clear blocked arteries do not benefit from a medical device used to help hearts pump during the procedure.

A study conducted with around 301 patients with hearts defects revealed no noteworthy differences in death rates, heart attacks, strokes or the need for retreatment – irrespective of whether they had an intra-aortic balloon pump inserted to augment blood flow or not. The devices, whose manufacturers include Teleflex Inc., Getinge AB's Maquet unit and Abiomed Inc., did reduce surgical difficulties.

"The results determine that balloon pumps should not be used regularly in high-risk heart patients, as they presently are about 5 percent of the time", said Simon Redwood, the study's senior author and a director of the cardiac catheterization lab at St. Thomas' Hospital in London. About 1 in 8 patients who did not get the devices at the start of the procedure required rescue therapy later. This was chiefly due to dangerously low blood pressure, according to the report in the Aug. 25 Journal of the American Medical Association.

"One of the commonest indications is to support high-risk angioplasty patients. This study will result in a drop in their use in angioplasty, but they should always be available as rescue." Redwood said in an e-mailed response to questions.

Angioplasty is an operation that is normally performed to bring back blood flow to the heart. The study mainly studied the use of balloon pumps during the artery-clearing procedure.

Rescue Therapy:

Christian Keller, chief executive officer of Maquet Cardiovascular in Wayne in New Jersey believes that the need for a balloon pump as a rescue therapy and the decreased number of complexities among patients receiving it at the start of the trial show it is a helpful tool.

The study was financed by the British Cardiovascular Intervention Society, based in London, with a grant from Maquet Cardiovascular of Wayne, New Jersey, and Johnson & Johnson of New Brunswick, New Jersey. Eli Lilly & Co., based in Indianapolis, supplied medication used during the study.

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