Mini-device can help prevent heart failure

Scientists have developed a tiny device that can deliver drugs to damaged tissues and prevent heart failure. After a patient has a heart attack, a cascade of events leading to heart failure begins. Damage to the area in the heart where a blood vessel was blocked leads to scar tissue. In response to scarring, the heart will remodel to compensate. This process often ends in ventricular or valve failure.

Researchers including those from Harvard University in the US and Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland hope to halt the progression from heart attack to heart failure with a small device called ‘Therepi’.

The device contains a reservoir that attaches directly to the damaged heart tissue. A refill line connects the reservoir to a port on or under the patient’s skin where therapies can be injected either by the patient or a healthcare professional. “After a heart attack we could use this device to deliver therapy to prevent a patient from getting heart failure,” said Ellen Roche, assistant professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US.

“If the patient already has some degree of heart failure, we can use the device to attenuate the progression,” said Roche. Two of the most common systems currently used for delivering therapies to prevent heart failure are inefficient and invasive.