Surgery to reshape heart found ineffective

"A controversial operation that folds the scarred portion of a damaged heart in on itself to get it to beat more effectively offers no real benefit to most patients, researchers reported on Sunday. The operation, known as ventricular reconstruction, is designed to help people with heart failure, a condition that affects about 5 million in the United States alone and often occurs after tissue is damaged by a heart attack. Generally, the heart tries to compensate for the damage by getting larger, but it also pumps far less efficiently. Doctors in a trial called STICH compared what happened to 1,000 volunteers, who all got heart bypass operations. Half also got ventricular reconstruction. Ventricular reconstruction did nothing to reduce the death rate or the risk of going back to the hospital. Nor did it improve the quality of life after four years, the researchers told a meeting of the American College of Cardiology in Orlando." - Reuters