New scanning strategy could help develop heart disease treatments (Scotland)

Patients with life-threatening heart valve disease could be helped with alternative scanning techniques that provide greater insight into the condition. Researchers from the University of Edinburgh used an imaging technique that could help predict which patients will need open heart surgery to replace their heart valves, and improve treatments to prevent the disease. The narrowing and hardening of the heart's aortic valve – a common condition known as aortic stenosis – affects 1 in 20 people over 65 in the UK and is on the increase due to an ageing population. The study, funded by the British Heart Foundation, trialled the use of positron emission tomography scans among patients with the condition. The scans give a much clearer insight into the process that causes aortic stenosis than ultrasound scans, which are currently used for diagnosis. They involve using tracer chemicals, which highlight molecular changes within the body

FDA approves first artificial aortic heart valve placed without open-heart surgery (USA)

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved the first artificial heart valve that can replace an aortic heart valve damaged by senile aortic valve stenosis without open-heart surgery. Senile aortic valve stenosis is a progressive, age-related disease caused by calcium deposits on the aortic valve that cause the valve to narrow. As the heart works harder to pump enough blood through the smaller valve opening, the heart eventually weakens, which can lead to problems such as fainting, chest pain, heart failure, irregular heart rhythms (arrhythmias), or cardiac arrest

Doctors defend themselves over heart surgery deaths (UK)

"Doctors have defended an increase in deaths for some types of heart surgery and insisted treatment was improving for patients. The death rate for aortic valve replacements, or AVR, where surgeons replace a diseased valve with an artificial or tissue valve, increased from 1.5 per cent in 2002 to 2003, to 3.25 per cent in 2007 to 2008. But figures released by the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, also showed a drop in mortality rates for heart bypass surgery. Cardiac surgeon Prof Stephen Westaby, who has worked at the John Radcliffe for more than 20 years, said the apparent increase in deaths in AVR surgery could be explained by the number of high risk patients being taken on. He said: 'These statistical issues are never what they seem. In the case of primary aortic valve replacements, we are now doing patients in their late 80s and 90s. 'We are now looking at an extremely elderly group of patients and you simply can’t keep mortality rates down. 'The figure of 3.25 per cent is still very, very low for the sort of groups we are dealing with. The John Radcliffe is known in the country to take on a proportion of high risk patients'" - Newsquest

NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia's doctors lead ongoing multicenter PARTNER clinical trial

"An innovative approach for implanting a new aortic heart valve without open-heart surgery is being offered to patients at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center. Known as the PARTNER (Placement of AoRTic traNscathetER valves) trial, this Phase 3 multicenter study is being led by national co-principal investigators Dr. Martin Leon and Dr. Craig Smith and is focused on the treatment of patients who are at high risk or not suitable for open-heart valve replacement surgery." - GEN

Irish patients have heart valves replaced without open surgery

"In a major breakthrough in the treatment of heart disease in the Republic of Ireland, for the first time a patient here has had a heart valve replaced without the need for open-heart surgery. Two patients in their 80s had replacement aortic valves placed inside their hearts using a new form of keyhole surgery. The groundbreaking procedures, each of which took two hours to perform, were carried out at the Blackrock Clinic, Dublin, last Wednesday" - Irish Times

Survival rates up for common heart defect

"Young adults with the most common type of congenital cardiac abnormality are likely to experience subsequent cardiac events. However, they do not appear to have lower survival rates compared to the general population, according to a new study. Patients with a bicuspid aortic valve in the heart, which is a valve that only has two flaps that open and close instead of three, were followed for an average of nine years. Twenty-five percent experienced one or more primary cardiac events, such as cardiac death, aortic death or congestive heart failure..." - Ivanhoe Newswire