Heart Failure Treatment News
Recent Stories
Oct 28, 2008
UM News (University of Minnesota)
- William Sowdon was constantly losing his breath and could only walk at a snail's pace. Laura Huber, at 28, had a rare case of postpartum cardiomyopathy, a condition where the heart muscle is inflamed and doesn't function well.
Oct 15, 2008
New Straits Times
- Clad in a blue skirt and a white top and jacket paired with a pair of white high-heeled shoes, a blue chain and a white slingbag, the teenager was every bit a fashionista as she flashed a confident smile at those present at a news conference organised by the National Heart Institute.
Oct 13, 2008
Daily Mail, UK
- Around 20,000 Britons suffer from dilated cardiomyopathy, which weakens their heart muscles, putting them at serious risk of heart failure. James Jackson, 22, a labourer from Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, had an artificial heart implanted to keep him alive while his own heart recovered, as he tells Thea Jourdan.
Sep 22, 2008
Bellingham Herald
- If not for the persistence of the woman who loved him, Jeff L. Frere's life may have ended suddenly and mysteriously at the young age of 46, at least until an autopsy showed the damage to his heart and arteries.
Sep 10, 2008
RTT News
- For patients suffering from advanced-stage heart failure and awaiting heart transplantation, the approval of Thoratec's HeartMate II by the FDA on April 21, represents a new hope, as drug therapies have not proven to be an effective solution. The device was approved in Europe as early as November 2005.
Sep 4, 2008
OSWEGO COUNTY NEWS
- Ken Whitney has had so many heart attacks that even a close family friend isn't sure whether it's been six or seven. He's also had at least four surgeries related to his heart, including two triple bypasses.
Aug 20, 2008
Contra Costa Times
- The heart of Chula Vista resident Debra Kinney was down to its last beats.
Aug 16, 2008
Business Week
- There's a new device on the market that will help bridge the gap for those suffering from heart disease and on the lengthy list for a heart transplant.
Aug 6, 2008
Medical News Today
- Seven years after Joaquin Lucio's kidneys shut down, he had a heart attack and was taken to a Los Angeles area hospital where doctors performed an angioplasty to clear his coronary arteries. He also was suffering from idiopathic congestive heart failure - a condition in which the heart becomes weak and enlarged - and a special pacemaker was implanted to provide support.
Jul 21, 2008
KFMB-TV Channel 8 San Diego
- When it comes to hearts, Taneal Wilson won the lottery. A small pump implanted to keep the 31-year-old alive long enough for a heart transplant somehow helped Wilson's ravaged heart completely recover instead.
Jul 18, 2008
KOLD-TV, CBS
- A Tucson man has become the first University Medical Center patient to get a relatively new mechanical heart assist device.
Jul 17, 2008
KATV - Little Rock,AR
- The numbers are staggering. An estimated 5-million Americans are affected by congestive heart failure, with nearly 500,000 cases diagnosed each year. But an innovative device is pumping new life into heart patients. And a local hospital has been given the green light to offer this revolutionary procedure.
Jul 15, 2008
WAGA-TV CH 5 (FOX) Atlanta
- Adam Cooper was a healthy college senior until this Spring, when he caught a flu-like virus he just couldn't shake. Now, more than two months after he was hospitalized at St. Joseph's hospital, Adam is finally hoping to go home.
Jul 10, 2008
ABC
- “… Earl Ingemann is a live wire. A 19-year-old Bermudan, he is constantly eluding doctors and nurses who want him to stay put and behave like other patients on the heart transplant list. But Earl would rather prowl the hospital, go out for junk food, play video games and get his hair braided. However, he needs something more than a routine heart transplant and doctors are worried.”
Jul 8, 2008
WCBD – TV, South Carolina
- In the coming years, thousands of people with fatal diseases of the heart will continue to enjoy birthdays, weddings, and the company of grandchildren.
Jul 8, 2008
Cardiovascular Device & Drugs
- Last month's approval of the advanced generation ventricular assist device (VAD) from Thoratec (Pleasanton, California) ? the HeartMate II Left Ventricular Assist System (LVAS) ? is leading the way in heart pump devices that are smaller, and touted as more efficient, and thus more available for implantation in smaller bodies: women, smaller men and younger people.
Jul 8, 2008
Cardiovascular Device & Drugs
- Gary Burbach focused on QUALITY of LIFE for HEART FAILURE PATIENTS
Jul 1, 2008
KWTV-TV CH 9 (CBS) Oklahoma City
- State-of-the-art technology for heart disease patients is now available in our state.
Jun 30, 2008
Fox 43 News KTMJ-TV CH 43 (FOX) Topeka
- A St. Joseph man needs a heart transplant, but he's not eligible for one yet because he just quit smoking a few months ago.
Jun 9, 2008
KUTV (CBS) – Salt Lake City
- Years ago, it was often a death sentence, but in our Healthy Living report, new technology has providing new hope for patients suffering from heart failure.
Jun 9, 2008
University of Michigan Health Systems Newsletter
- Heart transplants save the lives of more than 2,100 Americans every year. But many more patients are still waiting for a new heart to become available, and hundreds will die without ever getting a second chance at life.
Jun 5, 2008
KTHV-TV CH 11 (CBS) Little Rock/Pine Bluff
- "We've read that it can happen from a cold from pneumonia from arthritis, from regular infections that you would have and not think anything about it." Chuck Simons thought he was just getting another head cold when he went to his doctor in hot springs. That doctor visit ended like a bad dream. "So he came back in and said "Chuck, it's not a head cold," he said, "This is one of the worst EKG's I've ever seen." "He sent me over to a cardiologist in Hot Springs and they said you get to get checked into the hospital, do not pass go."
May 29, 2008
The Province (Vancouver)
- When Al Smith was diagnosed with a rare and fatal heart condition, there was a chance the Victoria man would not live long enough to receive a transplant.
May 26, 2008
Market Wire
- Physicians, patients and representatives from the Province and Provincial Health Services Authority will gather to recognize the B.C. Acute Heart Failure Program's unprecedented number of ventricular assist devices (or mechanical hearts) implanted th
May 15, 2008
WTOL 11
- It's the number one killer in America, but a brand-new, revolutionary device has the potential to save thousands battling heart disease.
May 5, 2008
Forbes
- David Pierce used to get short of breath every time he climbed the half-flight of stairs in his suburban Detroit home. Four years ago the machinist's congestive heart disease, which had forced him to retire early from his job at General Motors (nyse: GM - news - people ), had advanced to end-stage
Apr 28, 2008
The Dallas Morning News
- Sandy Gaddis felt chills, aches and a fever. But what at first looked like a classic flu bug soon revealed itself as something much worse: a deadly viral infection threatening her heart.
Apr 24, 2008
CBS 11
- A North Texas woman is alive, thanks to a mechanical device that repaired her diseased heart.
Apr 16, 2008
Duncanville Today
- In the midst of any serious medical condition, it is difficult to be hopeful. Yet for Lois Coker of Duncanville and her family, one significant surgery brought a ray of hope to her diagnosis.
Apr 4, 2008
Good Morning America
- As a 17-year-old, Salina Gonzales successfully fought Hodgkin's lymphoma with chemotherapy, and at the time doctors said she'd go on to live a normal life.
Mar 26, 2008
ABC World News with Charles Gibson
- A new experimental device to help a failing heart is awaiting FDA approval, but it has already helped save the life of one woman who agreed to test it.
Mar 1, 2008
Best Life
- Greg Jones is slouched in an office chair on the ground floor of his two-story house four miles west of downtown Chicago, a Windows error frozen on the computer screen behind him. I reach for his wrist—no pulse. I feel again, shifting my fingers to cover the radial artery—still nothing. That’s when I look at his face and he gives me a big smile.
Jan 25, 2008
ABC World News with Charles Gibson
- From the outside, Salina Gonzales looks pretty much like any other shopper — but it's what's going on inside her body that is so remarkable.
Jan 17, 2008
Sound Off
- The system controller, an electronic device strapped around Jose Vargas' waist, suddenly buzzed while a row of tiny lights flashed.
Oct 17, 2007
PBS
- Endlessly Beating examines the heart as a muscle - pumping almost 100,000 times a day, pushing approximately five quarts of blood in an endless course to deliver oxygen to every cell of the human body. This hour tells the story of the normal heart through the histories of three people with end-stage heart failure, where a pump may be a temporary remedy, but in the long term, a transplant is almost always necessary.
Sep 25, 2007
The Washington Times
- The strap and battery pack worn over Roger-Guy M. Folly's shoulder gives new meaning to wearing your heart on your sleeve.
Sep 22, 2007
Sacramento Bee
- For Steven "Stretch" Andersen, the signs of heart failure were hard to ignore: Winded after climbing a few bleacher steps at the NASCAR race in Las Vegas, unable to finish even half a New York steak, his normally ruddy complexion turning a dull gray.
Sep 21, 2007
UPI
- Thoratec Corp., a U.S. company, has developed an implantable pump that can help people with advanced heart failure survive while awaiting a transplant.
Aug 31, 2007
NEJM August 31, 2007
- The use of left ventricular assist devices is an accepted therapy for patients with refractory heart failure, but current pulsatile volume-displacement devices have limitations (including large pump size and limited long-term mechanical durability) that have reduced widespread adoption of this technology. Continuous-flow pumps are newer types of left ventricular assist devices developed to overcome some of these limitations...
Aug 29, 2007
Washington Post
- A new kind of heart pump helped patients with heart failure so severe that their only option was a transplant, cardiologists report.
Jun 27, 2007
Dental and Health Articles
- Surgeons at Emory University Hospital recently implanted Georgia's first HeartMate II ventricular assist device (VAD) as a form of destination therapy (in place of a donor transplant) for individuals who are not eligible for, or unwilling to undergo, a heart transplant.
Jun 5, 2007
Deseret Morning News
- Stanley Roberts was once cardiologist Dr. William Mackie's physician's assistant. Years later, when Roberts' heart was failing, his doctor-friend said he held Roberts together with "baling wire and duct tape."
May 28, 2007
Medical News Today
- Mark Heiner of Culver City reads books, paints artistically, takes walks and does laundry activities that would be considered routine except for the fact that a four-pound disk implanted in his abdominal cavity is keeping his blood flowing.
Apr 9, 2007
CBS News
- Left Ventricular Assist Devices, Or LVADs, Could Put Patients On The Road To Recovery
Mar 21, 2007
Barnes-Jewish Hospital
- FAIRLAND, Okla. - John Brock's heart failed while looking into the mouth of an open grave.
Mar 17, 2007
SABC News
- Nokkie Gerrits is the first man in Africa to receive the Heartmate. The left ventrical assist device is an electrical machine that performs the pumping function of the heart while the patient receives treatment. If the heart recovers enough to start pumping again, the device can be removed.
Feb 26, 2007
KHOU Channel 11
- She was seven months pregnant and diagnosed with stage IV Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
Berkeley Heights womans heart receives boost with new implant
Feb 14, 2007
Summit Independent Press
- Delores Treich, 72, of Berkeley Heights was critically-ill when she was transferred from a referring hospital to Newark Beth Israel Medical Center in December. Her heart was functioning at only 5% capacity before she underwent surgery to have the HeartMate II Left Ventricular Assist Device (LVAD) implanted. This lifesaving procedure was performed by Margarita T. Camacho, MD, surgical director of Cardiac Transplantation and Assist Devices at the Saint Barnabas Heart Center at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center.
Jan 10, 2007
St. Petersburg Times
- He had cancer surgery and got a heart device, and through it all, he didn't miss a game.
Jan 3, 2007
Associated Press
- A late December Medicare proposal to increase the number of hospitals authorized to implant a specialized mechanical heart device made by Thoratec could significantly expand the market for the company's products, an analyst said Wednesday.
