Restore Medical is testing a revolutionary implantable device hoped to reduce symptoms and repeat hospitalizations in people with CHF.
Congestive heart failure (CHF) is a leading cause of mortality – only 30 percent of patients survive 10 years, and less than half get even five years.
Israeli startup Restore Medical has developed a new approach to treating CHF using an implantable device.
CHF develops when the ventricles of the heart can’t pump enough blood volume. Eventually, blood and other fluids back up inside the lungs, abdomen, liver and lower body. Fluid in the lungs leads to shortness of breath and fatigue.
CHF affects 6.2 million people in the United States and more than 64 million people globally. It affects nearly 10 out of every 1,000 people over the age of 65, in whom it is the most common diagnosis for hospitalized patients.
Heart failure doesn’t mean the heart has stopped working; rather, because the blood returns to the heart faster than it can be pumped out, the heart becomes congested.
The body tries to compensate by signaling the heart to beat faster, to take less time for refilling after it contracts. But over the long run, less blood circulates and the extra effort can cause heart palpitations.
CHF most commonly damages the left ventricle – that’s the part of the heart that pumps blood to the body. The right ventricle’s job is to push blood into the lungs. The damaged left ventricle becomes dilated, like a balloon, to make room for the extra blood.The only treatment for CHF is pharmaceuticals such as ACE inhibitors, diuretics and vasodilators.
Reducing hospitalizations
Restore Medical developed an implant that is inserted into the pulmonary artery. It changes the pressure on the healthy right ventricle, enabling it to support the failed left ventricle, explains Gilad Marom, Restore Medical’s CEO.
The implant is dubbed ContraBand. “Contra,” which means “in opposition to,” refers to this contrarian push of one ventricle onto the other.The ContraBand implant is delivered to the heart via catheter in much the same way that stents are introduced – through the femoral vein in the thigh.
“The procedure is relatively simple and takes less than an hour,” Marom tells ISRAEL21c. “Patients can be discharged the next day.”
ContraBand is not a cure for CHF. It would be an additional treatment option along with pharmaceuticals.
“It won’t make the disease go away,” Marom says. “No one can do that. But it will reduce symptoms and it can reduce hospitalizations or trips to the doctor when fluid gets in the lungs.”