The result is that the heart's pumping ability is stronger, according to Leslie Saxon, MD, and Teresa De Marco, MD, UCSF associate professors of medicine and co-investigators on a nationwide, randomized study to evaluate the device. In an outpatient procedure, the device is placed under the skin near the shoulder. Physicians insert three electricity-delivering wires into a vein near the collarbone. Two wires are guided to the right ventricle of the heart, just as in a pacemaker implantation. The third wire, the new innovation, goes to the left ventricle and helps the two ventricles beat together.
Heart failure is different from a heart attack.
Deprived of oxygen, patients with failing hearts often feel light-headed or faint and ultimately find it difficult to walk even a short distance. Only half of patients with mild to moderate heart failure survive for five years and only half of patients with severe failure survive for one year, she said, adding that, after medications have failed, their only option is to wait for a transplant. The multi-center clinical trial to test devices will enroll up to 2,200 patients in at least 80 medical centers across the United States and is expected to take three or four years to complete. The grant will also support the Center's efforts to train future generations of physicians who will care for heart failure patients. Copyright 2001 Regents of the University of California.