Heart Failure
Heart failure occurs
when the heart muscle is too weak to pump as efficiently as it
should.
It is estimated that it affects 700,000 people
in the UK, most of which have permanent, irreversible, damage to
the pump function of the heart. In rare cases it also affects the
young.
Until recently, doctors were helpless in the battle against
heart failure. No medicines existed to improve the life expectancy
of heart failure patients.
Medical breakthroughs
The discovery of a class of medicines called
ACE inhibitors has been a major advance.
Benefit of ACE inhibitors
The AIRE study led by BHF Chair Professor Stephen Ball,
helped to prove the benefit of the ACE inhibitor
drugs in patients with heart failure after heart attack. Doctors
now prescribe them as mandatory therapy for heart failure and they
usually lead to a substantial improvement in quality of life and
outlook for patients.
Blood test to rule out heart failure
In 2003 a simple blood test to rule out heart failure was
recommended for patients in England and Wales. The value of the
test for B-type natriuretic peptide was partly
proven by BHF-funded research from Edinburgh and Glasgow. More
complicated and inconvenient tests can now be avoided in many
patients.
Medicine to improve failing heart’s energy
BHF experts have been working on the hypothesis that failing
hearts have difficulty in producing energy. Professor
Michael Frenneaux is testing a medicine that he hopes will
reduce this burden and relieve symptoms.
In pilot studies of the treatment (called perhexiline), patients
who could only walk slowly, for short distances, on flat ground,
could walk at a reasonable pace for further and even manage a
flight of steps.
Professor Frenneaux is seeking funding from industry to take the
research forward into large-scale trials.
What next?
At present the only cure for severe heart failure is a heart transplant. However,
there is a limited supply of organs and such a major surgical
procedure can be risky.
Researchers at Harefield Hospital are investigating how a
mechanical device that takes over the work of the heart can
help failing hearts to recover. They're
working with patients who have dilated cardiomyopathy, but
their work could help us understand how to bring more hearts back
from the brink.
The BHF fund a wide portfolio of heart failure research,
including studies towards helping the heart regenerate itself with
our bodies’ own stem cells. Read about
Dr Paul Riley's research that is helping to
unravel how we might encourage cells lying dormant in our hearts to
regenerate or replace damaged tissue.
The BHF Centre of Research
Excellence at Imperial College London is also a hotbed
for pioneering stem cell research, led by BHF Professor Michael Schneider
and colleagues.
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