Mailman School faculty give new medical technologies a reality check. Each year, approximately 600,000 Americans suffer strokes, including 100,000 second strokes. Although not always fatal, stroke takes an enormous toll in the United States, where it is a major cause of long-term disability. Thus, the race is on to find cost-effective ways of preventing stroke . End-stage heart disease is the most common diagnosis among Medicare patients.
Transplantation offers many heart-failure patients a better chance of survival than drug therapy.
However, a shortage of donor hearts forces most transplant candidates into a dangerous waiting game. The multicenter, randomized trial will also examine the life expectancy of the device, as well as its effect on quality of life and the cost of treating end-stage heart disease. The role of gender in health is a relatively new area of inquiry. Until recently, it was thought that men were more likely than women to suffer and die from a number of heart-related ailments. New evidence reveals that heart disease is the number one killer of women as well as men.