Save our heart

Congestive heart failure affects about 4.6 million Americans and kills nearly 45,000 people each year. When the heart is weakened, either by disease or defect, it can’t move blood through the body efficiently. This causes a buildup of fluid in the body and can lead to deadly complications. The condition can be the result of cardiovascular disease. Heart attacks can significantly weaken the heart’s function. Some people are born with heart defects, like faulty valves.

Viral infections can also weaken the heart. Some scientists believe the inflammation caused by many of these health problems is one cause of heart failure. Some doctors theorize removing the components of inflammation from the blood may allow the heart to heal.

To remove proteins associated with inflammation from the blood, doctors use a procedure called plasmapheresis. It is a blood purification treatment often used to treat autoimmune disorders.

Dr. Guillermo Torre, a cardiologist at The Methodist Hospital in Houston, is using this procedure to treat patients with heart failure.

“Addressing inflammation provides a whole new strategy for patients with heart failure,” he said.

In this treatment, blood is removed from the body and moved through a machine. The blood cells are separated from the blood plasma, which is the liquid part of blood. The red blood cells are returned to the patient, absent the proteins created by the body’s immune response. It is these proteins that attack the heart.

Torre and his colleagues tested plasmapheresis on heart failure patients at The Methodist Hospital. He reports many of the patients felt better and had improved cardiac function following five or six treatments. According to Torre, some of the patients were able to delay heart transplant surgeries, which is very risky and seen as a last resort. Torre plans to conduct further research in the future to find out if additional plasmapheresis treatments could help heart failure patients improve even more.

Plasmapheresis is not without risks. In addition to removing the inflammation markers causing heart damage, it also removes many of the good immune response chemicals from the blood. This can leave patients with a weakened ability to fight off infections. Some of the patients in Torre’s study needed antibiotics following the treatments.

Source : www.news8austin.com