Medical Center Performs First U.S. Implant of Heart Device (3/22/2008)

A central Ohio man has become the first person in the United States, and only the 16th worldwide, to receive a heart implant designed to improve the heart's pumping action and help manage congestive heart failure symptoms. The procedure was performed at The Ohio State University Medical Center.

Congestive heart failure occurs when a patient's heart is not pumping blood efficiently, most often due to a weak heart muscle damaged by a prior heart attack. As part of a multi-center trial, the study device, which looks like a parachute turned inside out, is placed in the damaged portion of the pumping chamber of the heart and essentially partitions off the inefficient portion of the weakened heart chamber.

An advantage of the device is that it can be implanted via a small incision in the patient's leg artery without the need for general anesthesia or open heart surgery, allowing for faster recovery time. Most patients, including the patient implanted at Ohio State, are discharged the day after the procedure.

"The concept of this device is to decrease the size of an abnormally enlarged heart with the hope of improving the patient's symptoms such as shortness of breath, fatigue and swelling," said Dr. Ernest Mazzaferri Jr., an interventional cardiologist at Ohio State's Richard M. Ross Heart Hospital, who implanted the device March 11.

Approximately 5.3 million Americans suffer from congestive heart failure, and it accounts for 20 percent of hospital admissions for patients over 65 years old. In 2001, there were nearly 1 million hospital admissions related to congestive heart failure. Treatment costs approached $26 million in 2004.

"This device has the potential to help many of these millions of heart failure patients," said Dr. William T. Abraham, director of cardiovascular medicine at The Ohio State University Medical Center and national principal investigator for the trial.

Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by Ohio State University

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