A heart transplant is an operation in which the diseased heart in a person is replaced with a healthy heart from a deceased donor. Ninety percent of heart transplants are performed on patients with end-stage heart failure.
Heart failure is a condition in which the heart is damaged or weakened and can't pump enough blood to meet the body's needs. "End-stage" means the condition has become so severe that all treatments, other than heart transplant, have failed.
Studying heart samples from patients with cardiomyopathies, as well as from controls without heart disease, researchers have provided new insights into the cellular and molecular biology of human heart failure – a highly fatal condition that affects 23 million people worldwide.
Researchers successfully transplanted two genetically engineered heart pigs into recently deceased humans in June and July 2022.
Researchers from the group of Eva van Rooij used advanced sequencing technology to better understand the heart disease arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy, in which heart muscle tissue is replaced by fat cells. Using explanted human hearts, they found regions in which heart muscle was actively degenerated and identified a new gene, ZBTB11, that drives heart muscle cell degradation. The results were published in Cardiovascular Research on 17 May 2022.
A new grant for researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis will fund research investigating the role of the immune system in heart failure. Finding ways to harness beneficial immune cells could lead to new therapies that encourage the heart to heal after injuries.
Patients with heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF) did not experience any improvement in their ability to exercise vigorously after taking the experimental heart failure drug omecamtiv mecarbil, in a study presented at the American College of Cardiology's 71st Annual Scientific Session.
Heart transplantation can be a lifesaving operation for patients with end-stage heart failure. However, many patients experience organ transplant rejection, in which the immune system begins attacking the transplanted organ.
Israeli researchers evaluate the antibody response in ICPs to assess antibody-mediated immunity following vaccination with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
Radiation therapy for ventricular tachycardia — a life-threatening irregular heart rhythm — appears to work by reverting heart muscle cells to a younger state, reducing the irregular rhythms, according to a new study from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.
Surgeons at Duke University Hospital successfully performed a "donation after circulatory death" (DCD) heart transplant in a pediatric patient, demonstrating the potential expansion of eligible donor hearts for children with heart failure.
An experimental artificial heart includes an autoregulation control mechanism, or Auto-Mode, that can adjust to the changing needs of patients treated for end-stage heart failure.
An integrated, genomic computer system for precision cardiology has been created using clinical data that can help inform medical and surgical decisions to support future therapies for patients with inherited heart disease.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is alerting health care providers to no longer implant end-stage heart failure patients with Medtronic's Heartware Ventricular Assist Device (HVAD) System due to a growing body of observational clinical comparisons that demonstrates a higher frequency of neurological adverse events and mortality associated with the system when compared to other commercially available devices, as well as complaints that the internal pump may delay or fail to restart.
A new study, presented today at the AATS 101st Annual Meeting, found that heart transplantation using donation after cardiac death (DCD) with normothermic regional perfusion (NRP) is feasible in the United States.
A new study, presented today at the AATS 101st Annual Meeting, shows that non-invasive cell-free DNA tests can reduce the need for regular surveillance biopsies to detect early rejection in heart transplant patients. The study was the first of its kind to be performed on both adult and pediatric patients.
A pediatric heart transplant procedure pioneered by Canadian doctors--once deemed impossible--has been shown to be at least as effective as the traditional approach, according to newly published research in The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health.
Young, Black adults are more than twice as likely to die in the first year after a heart transplant when compared to same-age, non-Black heart transplant recipients, according to new research published today in Circulation: Heart Failure, an American Heart Association journal.
The Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) hub partnership between Virginia Tech, the University of Virginia, Carilion Clinic, and Inova Health System has awarded $200,000 in funding to five research projects through the Pilot Translational and Clinical Studies Program. Multi-institutional teams of scientists, physicians, and engineers will study Parkinson's disease, celiac disease, pediatric heart transplant, pediatric telemedicine, and epilepsy.
In a series of commissions awarded by the Federal Joint Committee (G-BA) to the Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care, the question is whether for certain surgical procedures, a correlation can be shown between the volume of services provided per hospital and the quality of treatment results.
While there are therapies to aid in overall heart health, there are very few preventative therapies for heart failure after a significant heart attack, a serious condition that has a very significant mortality.
MRI examinations can be performed safely in patients with non-MR compatible cardiac devices, including those who are pacemaker-dependent or have abandoned leads, according to a study published in Radiology: Cardiothoracic Imaging.