BTN News: Gentle shockwaves could be used to regenerate heart tissue, after researchers in Austria exposed beating human heart cells grown thereafter bypass surgery to them for the first time. In the most recent study with 63 patients, the implementation of this novel therapy resulted in a significant improvement in heart function and so mobility. This may represent a major turning point in cardiac therapy, providing hope to millions of patients with heart disease around the world.
Revolutionary Shockwave Therapy for Heart Tissue Rejuvenation
Introduction
According to the World Health Organization, heart disease is responsible for 18 million deaths across the world every year, making it the number one killer worldwide. Current therapeutics, such as medications or invasive surgical options like heart bypass surgery, are focused on treating symptoms and prevent heart attack but do not regenerate the function in the heart. Now, scientists in Austria have introduced a new treatment using mild soundwaves that they hope will repair the broken heart, announcing it as a major breakthrough in cardiac medicine.
Outstanding Cardiac Care (Innovative Heart Care)
Blocked arteries may cause irreversible damage to the heart, resulting in widespread damage that can require operations such as open-heart surgery (heart bypass surgery), where a vein or artery from another part of body is surgically attached to aid in circumventing the blockage. It may improve heart function, but it will not repair the heart tissue. An international team led by Prof. Johannes Holfeld at Innsbruck Medical University developed a novel technology using sonogenetics to trigger the growth of new blood vessels in heart-damaged tissues.
Study Insights and Results
In research work published in the European Heart Journal, 63 bypass surgery patients were randomly divided into two groups. The Soundwave group was treated under general anesthesia with soundwave therapy while the Sham group underwent online simulators. A year after treatment, the heart’s ejection fraction (the proportion of oxygenated blood pumped out from the heart with each beat) had increased by 11.3% in those that received soundwaves compared with an increase of 6.3% in the control group. Patients who received the therapy also had a better quality of life and walked further before needing to rest.
How Shockwave Therapy Work And Its Advantages
It is a 10-minute treatment, using gentle soundwaves to the heart immediately after bypass surgery. Similar to the work going into methods for healing injured tendons, ligaments, and erectile problems, this approach is an attempt at re-growing the heart muscle by promoting new vessel growth around areas that are scarred or damaged after a heart attack.
Prof Holfeld said that the whole approach was “incredibly translatable”, adding that “This is really the first time that we are seeing regeneration of the heart muscle inside and area of injury in a patient in a clinical setting, so [this] has so much potential to help millions of people.” These findings indicate that soundwave-treated patients might not only benefit from improved heart function but also from longer life and less frequent hospital readmissions.
Outlook and Approvals
Specifically, larger clinical trials are expected to follow in validating the results over a wider patient population. The study has recently been published in two scientific journals and is now shared by the Austrian government departments that funded the research, the US National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute as well as a commercial entity spun off from Innsbruck Medical University. The hope is for approval by European regulators later this year, and for the test to be available for widespread clinical use by 2025.
Expert Opinions and Next Steps
Dr. Sonya Babu-Narayan, associate medical director at the British Heart Foundation, said the study provided important insights but cautioned that treatments for heart disease often fail in practice. One year later, those who had shockwave therapy to the heart during their surgery performed better in a heart function test and had fewer symptoms, Behar commented on what was most interesting about this study. The larger trials needed to confirm the long-term benefits of this game-changing new therapy are eagerly awaited by the research community.
Conclusion
This is a new paradigm for treating heart disease and certainly one that will be followed with interest. If the findings are reproduced this exciting new treatment may have great promise in improving cardiogenic shock patients’ experiences and provide hope for a happier cardiac future
