Heart muscle can undergo Dr Who-style regeneration thanks to shockwave therapy; Research shows that the blood pumped by the heart increases by 11 percent after treatment
Applying gentle shock waves could get the heart muscle working again after bypass surgery, new studies suggest.
Doctors in Austria have successfully regenerated heart tissue using a device that sends mild stimulation shortly after patients undergo surgery.
Tests showed that the treatment caused the heart to pump more oxygen through the body. Meanwhile, patients reported being able to walk further without resting and also said they had a better overall quality of life.
Heart bypass surgery is a procedure that can help patients whose blood flow to the heart is suddenly blocked.
It creates a new path for blood to flow around narrowed or blocked areas of the major arteries to improve blood flow and oxygen supply to the heart.
Doctors in Austria have successfully regenerated heart tissue using a device that sends mild stimulation shortly after patients underwent surgery (stock image)
But this can only preserve heart function and not improve it.
Therefore, researchers wanted to assess whether they could help regenerate the damaged heart muscle after bypass surgery.
In a trial involving 63 patients, researchers used a machine – a so-called ‘space hair dryer’ – to apply mild sound waves shortly after bypass surgery.
It was theorized that the ten-minute procedure would stimulate the growth of new blood vessels around the area that was damaged or scarred after a heart attack.
One year after the operation, the amount of oxygen-rich blood pumped by the heart had increased by 11.3 percent in the shockwave group and by 6.3 percent in the control group that did not receive the treatment.
The paper’s authors also reported that the shockwave patients were also able to walk further without resting during a six-minute test, according to findings published in the European Heart Journal.
Professor Johannes Holfeld, from the Medical University of Innsbruck in Austria, told the BBC that the treatment could help ‘millions of people’.
He said: ‘It means they can go back to walking their dog or going to the supermarket in their daily lives.
“We also expect that they will have a longer life expectancy and fewer readmissions.”
Experts say a larger trial is needed but could one day help patients with incurable heart failure (stock image)
Experts say a larger trial is needed but could one day help patients with incurable heart failure.
Dr. Sonya Babu-Narayan, associate professor at the British Heart Foundation and consultant cardiologist, said: ‘Heart failure can be an extremely disabling condition, estimated to affect more than a million people in Britain.
‘It is known that ischemic heart disease, or a lack of blood supply to the heart muscle, is the biggest contributor to the number of patients with heart failure.
‘Heart surgery that bypasses blocked coronary arteries undoubtedly helps relieve symptoms in patients with ischemic heart disease and can prevent heart failure. But this is not always the case and there is still a lot of room for improvement.
‘The exciting thing about this trial is that a year later, people who had received shockwave therapy to the heart during their operation had better heart function and fewer symptoms than those who had not. Larger and longer trials are now needed to investigate the long-term effects.’