BG Medicine today announced the publication of a peer-reviewed article on the role of galectin-3 in heart failure development and progression.
The article, which was authored by Dr. Rudolph de Boer, et.al., from the University Medical Center Groningen, The Netherlands, appeared in the European Journal of Heart Failure (see below for full citation). The abstract, and instructions on how to obtain the full article, can be found at www.galectin-3.com.
Galectins are a family of proteins that play an important role in inflammation, immunity, and cancer. Galectin-3 has been shown to play an important role in heart failure in animal and human studies. These studies suggest that galectin-3 is responsible for a form of progressive fibrosis of the heart also known as adverse cardiac remodeling.
BG Medicine has developed an optimized assay for galectin-3 and is seeking regulatory clearance in the United States and certification in Europe to commercialize the galectin-3 assay for clinical use in patients with heart failure.
Heart failure is a common, complex, and serious medical condition that affects approximately six (6) million people in the US alone. Once diagnosed, the prognosis is poor, with approximately 50% surviving for more than five years.
“Most medical conditions are now segmented based on the underlying disease process”, said Pieter Muntendam, President and CEO of BG Medicine and co-author of the article. “Heart failure, however, remains a heterogeneous group of serious cardiac conditions where advances in treatments have been hampered by our ability to segment patients based on the underlying disease process. Galectin-3 offers important new insights into what is happening at the molecular level in patients with the progressive form of heart failure to enable a more personalized form of clinical medicine.”
Citation: Rudolf A. de Boer, Adriaan A. Voors, Pieter Muntendam, Wiek H. van Gilst, and Dirk J. van Veldhuisen Galectin-3: a novel mediator of heart failure development and progression. European Journal of Heart Failure Advance Access published on July 31, 2009. doi:10.1093/eurjhf/hfp097
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