Have a "game changer" for severe heart failure?

September 24, 2018 – A tiny video could be a big step forward for millions of Americans with severe heart failure, according to a new study announced Sunday.

The researchers say that a device, called a mitral clip, inserted into the heart has significantly reduced death rates in these patients.

"It's a huge breakthrough," Dr. Howard Herrmann, who heads Interventional Cardiology at the University of Pennsylvania, told The New York Times. "This shows that we can treat and improve the results of an illness in a way that we never thought we could do."

Heart failure occurs when the heart becomes weak and damaged, usually after a trauma such as a heart attack. In trying to compensate, the heart begins to pump inefficiently and, as a result, becomes larger and poorly formed.

At the same time, these changes begin to manifest themselves on the mitral valve, which guides blood flow from the left atrium of the heart to the left ventricle. This can cause a "backup" of blood in the heart, aggravating cardiac inefficiency and exacerbating heart failure.

Although drugs can slow heart failure, its progress is ruthless and there is little else to offer patients. Nearly 2 million Americans suffer from severe heart failure, which severely limits daily activity.

But the new study, funded by the device's manufacturer, Abbot, offers new hope. Doctors used the device, called MitraClip, to attach two damaged mitral valve flaps in the middle. This seemed to restore the regular function of the valve, according to the researchers.

The trial included 614 patients with severe heart failure in the United States and Canada. They were randomly assigned to receive either the standard MitraClip plus treatment or standard treatment alone.

Of the half of the patients who did not receive the device, 151 were hospitalized for heart failure in the next two years and 61 died. This compares to only 92 hospitalizations for patients who received the clip, of whom 28 died.

"This is a game change. It's huge," said Dr. Matthew Williams, who runs the Heart Valve Program at NYU Langone Health in New York.

The hospital had a few patients in the study, which was published Sunday in the New England Journal of Medicine and presented simultaneously at a European meeting on the heart.