Unexpected heart muscle growth found in patients with artificial hearts

By Free Republic | Created at 2024-12-26 01:34:05 | Updated at 2024-12-26 13:18:32 11 hours ago

Unexpected heart muscle growth found in patients with artificial hearts
Medical Xpress / University of Arizona / Circulation ^ | Dec. 21, 2024 | Wouter Derks et al

Posted on 12/25/2024 5:30:47 PM PST by ConservativeMind

A research team found that a subset of artificial heart patients can regenerate heart muscle, which may open the door to new ways to treat and perhaps someday cure heart failure.

There is no cure for heart failure, though medications can slow its progression. The only treatment for advanced heart failure, other than a transplant, is pump replacement through an artificial heart, called a left ventricular assist device.

Said Hesham Sadek, MD, Ph.D., "When a heart muscle is injured, it doesn't grow back. We have nothing to reverse heart muscle loss."

Sadek led a collaboration between international experts to investigate whether heart muscles can regenerate.

The investigators found that patients with artificial hearts regenerated muscle cells at more than six times the rate of healthy hearts.

Sadek said, "It strongly supports the hypothesis that the inability of the heart muscle to 'rest' is a major driver of the heart's lost ability to regenerate shortly after birth."

These findings, combined with other research teams' observations that a minority of artificial heart patients could have their devices removed after experiencing a reversal of symptoms, led him to wonder if the artificial heart provides cardiac muscles the equivalent of bedrest in a person recovering from a soccer injury.

"The pump pushes blood into the aorta, bypassing the heart," he said. "The heart is essentially resting."

Sadek's previous studies indicated that this rest might be beneficial for the heart muscle cells, but he needed to design an experiment to determine whether patients with artificial hearts were actually regenerating muscles.

"Irrefutable evidence of heart muscle regeneration has never been shown before in humans," he said. "This study provided direct evidence."

Next, Sadek wants to figure out why only about 25% of patients are "responders" to artificial hearts.

(Excerpt) Read more at medicalxpress.com ...

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Some number of left ventricular assist device transplants can actually restore enough heart muscles cells that the devices can be removed.

It is due to allowing the heart to largely rest those affected cells.

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2 posted on 12/25/2024 5:31:17 PM PST by ConservativeMind (Trump: Befuddling Democrats, Republicans, and the Media for the benefit of the US and all mankind.)

To: ConservativeMind

Correction: the device is not a transplant.

It is instead of a transplant. Sorry about that.

3 posted on 12/25/2024 5:31:55 PM PST by ConservativeMind (Trump: Befuddling Democrats, Republicans, and the Media for the benefit of the US and all mankind.)

To: ConservativeMind

“Unexpected” is what we call phenomenon that occur outside of the orthodoxy of scientism

4 posted on 12/25/2024 5:33:47 PM PST by JJBookman (Democrats = Party of bad math)

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