Patent ID: 7828711

Claim:
A system adapted to be coupled to a heart having myocardial tissue and a myocardial infarct (MI) region, the system comprising: an implantable agent delivery device containing one or more agents that promote myocardial tissue replacement and adapted to deliver the one or more agents to the MI region, wherein the one or more agents that promote myocardial tissue replacement enhance migration, implantation, or proliferation of stem cells in the MI region and reduce scar formation; and an implantable ventricular-assist device (VAD) including: a sensor to sense one or more signals indicative of one or more of a strain of the myocardial tissue and a size of the MI region; a pump to assist the heart in blood pumping; a VAD controller coupled to the pump, the VAD controller adapted to control the operation of the pump using the sensed one or more signals for enhancing one or more effects of the one or more agents; and an agent delivery controller coupled to the implantable agent delivery device, the agent delivery controller adapted to control the delivery of the one or more agents using the sensed one or more signals in temporal coordination with the operation of the pump.