Heart disease swells the human heart as scar tissue and stretching take their toll on the body?s most powerful muscle.
A cardiac surgeon from Johns Hopkins University estimates that one in 20 heart attack patients may recover more quickly if some of that excess muscle is trimmed.
Cutting and suturing together stretched muscle and scar tissue resulting from the initial heart attack ? called ventricular restoration ? could cut the patient?s risk of a second heart attack from 55 percent to 24 percent, according to a speech presented Monday at the 44th annual meeting of the Society of Thoracic Surgeons in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
“Cardiologists and cardiac surgeons with patients about to undergo coronary bypass surgery should clearly be considering ventricular restoration,” said Dr. John Conte, senior study investigator and cardiac surgeon with Hopkins. “For those who qualify for the dual procedure, the trend is clearly toward living longer, with fewer hospitalizations and improved quality of life.”
Almost 700,000 people die of heart disease in the U.S. each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That is about 30 percent of all U.S. deaths.
The combined procedure in patients with moderate heart failure offers increased chance to delay or put off entirely the need for a heart transplant, Conte said. There is a tremendous shortage of organs available for heart transplantation, with nearly 3,000 Americans on waiting lists.
Not all patients can benefit from the resizing, and the procedure is more appropriate for those with moderate to severe heart failure, according to Conte?s report.
Those whose pumping function has dropped to less than 35 percent and who have suffered a clearly defined heart attack in the heart?s main pumping chamber, the left ventricle, have the most to gain.
“We estimate that about one in 20 patients who have congestive heart failure are in this category from the volume of patients we see here at Hopkins,” Conte said.
