Aug 29 – Sept 2, 2020
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Thanks to a new study from Columbia Engineering School, USA it may now be possible to diagnose non-periodic arrhythmias noninvasively and at low cost within a single heartbeat.
Non-periodic arrhythmias include atrial and ventricular fibrillation, which are associated with severely abnormal heart rhythm that can in some cases be life-threatening. Using Electromechanical Wave Imaging (EWI), the researchers sent unfocused ultrasound waves through the closed chest and into the heart. They were able to capture fast-frame-rate images that enabled them, for the first time, to map transient events such as the electromechanical activation that occurs over a few tens of milliseconds while also imaging the entire heart within a single beat. This means that physicians won
More than 30% of the one million heart attack victims in the United States each year die before seeking medical attention. Although widespread education campaigns describe the warning signs of a heart attack, the average time from the onset of symptoms to arrival at the hospital has remained at 3 hours for more than 10 years. In their upcoming article,’This is your heart speaking. Call 911,
Loyola University Medical Center is one of the major enrollers in a landmark clinical trial that found that plugging a hole in the heart works no better than drugs in preventing strokes.
Loyola enrolled 24 patients, one of the highest patient enrollments in the multi-centre trial and more than any other Chicago-area hospital. Principal investigators at the Loyola site were stroke specialist Dr. Michael Schneck and interventional cardiologist Dr. Fred Leya.
About 1 in 4 adults has a small hole in the wall that separates the top two chambers of the heart. It’s called a patent foramen ovale (PFO). For most people, a PFO poses no problems. But in some cases, a clot can pass through the hole, migrate to the brain and trigger a stroke.
The standard treatment is medication to prevent blood clots, typically aspirin or Coumadin. A newer treatment is to plug the hole with a device delivered by a catheter. The catheter is inserted into a blood vessel at the top of the leg and guided up to the heart. When the catheter reaches the PFO, the device is deployed, opening like an umbrella to plug the hole.
The clinical trial included 909 patients who had PFOs and had previously suffered strokes or mini strokes called transient ischemic attacks (TIAs). They were randomly assigned to receive a PFO closure device plus blood thinners or drug therapy alone.
The closure device worked no better than drugs alone in preventing recurrent strokes or TIAs. Moreover, major vascular complications occurred in 3.2 percent of the closure group.
Loyola University Health System
Though pacemakers require only small amounts of energy (about 1 millionth of a Watt), their batteries have to be replaced periodically, which means multiple surgeries for patients. Researchers have searched for ways to prolong battery life — trying to generate energy to power a pacemaker using blood sugar, or the motion of the hands and legs — but these methods either interfere with metabolism or require a more drastic surgery, such as passing a wire from the limbs to the chest area.
Aerospace engineers M. Amin Karami and Daniel J. Inman, from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, have developed a prototype device that could power a pacemaker using a source that is surprisingly close to the heart of the matter: vibrations in the chest cavity that are due mainly to heartbeats.
In their method, vibrations in the chest cavity deform a layer of piezoelectric material, which is able to convert mechanical stress into electrical current. Tests indicate that the device could perform at heart rates from 7 to 700 beats per minute (well below and above the normal range), and that it could deliver eight times the energy required for a pacemaker. Furthermore, the authors write, the amount of energy generated is always larger than the amount required to run a pacemaker, regardless of heart rate.
Though the team has yet to develop a prototype that is biocompatible, they say that the potential to package this energy harvester with pacemakers gives it an advantage over competing methods.
U-M Department of Aerospace Engineering
Blood pressure changes during middle age can seriously affect one
The full ‘ESC Guidelines for the Diagnosis and Treatment of Acute and Chronic Heart Failure 2012’ will be available is online as of 14:30 hrs on Saturday 19 May 2012.
New recommendations on devices, drugs and diagnosis in heart failure were launched at the Heart Failure Congress 2012, 19-22 May, in Belgrade, Serbia.
The ESC Guidelines for the Diagnosis and Treatment of Acute and Chronic Heart Failure 2012 were developed by the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) in collaboration with the Heart Failure Association (HFA) of the ESC. The Congress is the HFA
A study conducted at Scripps Health has found that a novel new heart monitoring device helped emergency room patients avoid unnecessary follow-up care. Scripps Health electrophysiologist Steven Higgins, MD, presented findings of the study, titled ‘Prevalence of Arrhythmias in Emergency Department Patients Discharged Using a Novel Ambulatory Cardiac Monitor,’ at the Heart Rhythm Society
Neither aspirin nor Warfarin is superior for preventing a combined risk of death, stroke, and cerebral haemorrhage in heart failure patients with normal heart rhythm, according to a landmark clinical trial.
The 10-year Warfarin and Aspirin for Reduced Cardiac Ejection Fraction (WARCEF) trial is the largest double-blind comparison of these medications for heart failure, following 2,305 patients at 168 study sites in 11 countries on three continents. The research was led by clinical principal investigator Shunichi Homma, MD, of Columbia University Medical Center/NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, and statistical principal investigator John L.P. (Seamus) Thompson, PhD, of Columbia University
Using a combination of surgical procedures developed over the last 11 years, surgeons at Boston Children’s Hospital have established a new approach for rebuilding the heart in children born with a severe heart defect called hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS). This ‘staged left ventricle recruitment’ (SLVR) strategy uses the existing standard single-ventricle treatment for HLHS and additional procedures to spur the body’s capacity for healing and growth and encourage the small left ventricle in these children to grow and function.
Members of Boston Children’s Departments of Cardiac Surgery and Cardiology
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