WATCHING HEARTS AT HOME
REPORT: MB #3060
BACKGROUND: Heart failure affects nearly 5 million Americans, and, according the Heart Failure Society of America, is an often misdiagnosed problem. The number of deaths from the condition has more than doubled in the United States since 1979. Heart failure is a progressive disease that starts slowly and gets worse over time, and less than 50 percent of patients live five years after initial diagnosis.
When heart failure sets in, the body tries to compensate for a lack of oxygen in different ways. The heart enlarges to try to pump more blood, and it also pumps faster to try to increase output. In addition, blood vessels narrow to keep blood pressure up, and the body diverts blood away from "less important" tissues and organs to maintain flow to vital organs like the heart and brain. These mechanisms explain why many patients receive a diagnosis of heart failure years after the problem surfaces, according to the American Heart Assocation.
CAUSES: Heart failure occurs when the heart's muscles become weakened after injury caused by an event like a heart attack. The most common causes of the condition are coronary artery disease, high blood pressure and diabetes. According to the Centers for Disease Control, about seven out of 10 people with heart failure have high blood pressure before being diagnosed, and approximately 22 percent of men and 46 percent of women will develop heart failure within six years of a heart attack.
MONITORING HEARTS FROM A DISTANCE: Trials are underway to evaluate a new device that helps doctors wirelessly monitor pressure in the pulmonary artery in heart failure patients. The wireless sensor, called EndoSure, is implanted into the pulmonary artery -- which carries blood from the heart to the lungs -- through a catheter-based procedure. After the implantation procedure, patients return to normal life and wirelessly send measurements from home to a website his or her physician can access. The device that is implanted is about the size of a paperclip and is based on a technology called MEMS, or microelectromechanical systems. The implanted device contains no batteries or internal power source, but is powered by radiofrequency energy through an antenna.
To send a reading from home, a patient places an antenna near the implant site. That antenna sends a signal to a separate, main unit that displays information from the sensor about pressure, heart rate and cardiac output. That information is immediately sent to a database and made available on a website to the physician who performed the implant. The trial to evaluate the EndoSure device in the management of heart failure is being conducted at over 65 heart centers in the United States, including the Ohio State University Medical Center and the Oklahoma Heart Institute. A similar system is also being used in patients with abdominal aortic aneurysms.
FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:
Doug Flowers
Public Relations
The Ohio State University Medical Center
(614) 293-3670
doug.flowers@osumc.edu
