This Medical Clip May Be a Powerful Treatment for Heart Failure, Study Says

A seemingly simple but sophisticated clip may usher in a “new era” for patients suffering from a severe and difficult-to-treat complication of heart failure, according to a new study. The device, called the MitraClip, reduced hospitalizations related to heart failure by nearly half and deaths by nearly 40% among patients with a specific and serious complication of heart failure, compared to those who received standard medical treatment. The results were published Sunday in the New England Journal of Medicine. “This therapy really offers an important new option for very desperate patients who are suffering with heart failure and who have no therapeutic alternatives,” says Dr. Gregg Stone, the study’s co-principal investigator and the director of cardiovascular research and education at the Center for Interventional Vascular Therapy at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center. “This is a new era dawning for truly desperate patients with heart failure.” The study involved 614 patients with a serious condition called secondary mitral regurgitation (MR). These patients’ mitral valves leak, causing blood to back up into the heart and forcing the organ to work harder to circulate blood throughout the body. In some patients — those with primary MR — leakage happens as a result of damage to the mitral valve itself, which can typically be repaired surgically. But in those with secondary MR, the heart mu...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized healthytime Research Source Type: news