The Cardiovascular Center and the University of Pittsburgh have been awarded $13.3 million to explore the potential benefits of heart devices for the large and growing group of Americans with heart failure.
The National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute and HeartWare, a maker of left ventricular assist devices (LVAD), are sponsoring the study of earlier access to these devices that support the circulation of patients with failing hearts.
In REVIVE-IT, researchers will compare whether patients with heart failure less advanced than that of current LVAD recipients and are not eligible for a heart transplant do better with implanted devices than with current medical therapy.
Principal investigators include Dr. Keith Aaronson, medical director of the heart transplant program and Center for Circulatory Support at the Cardiovascular Center; Dr. Francis Pagani, surgical director of the heart transplant program and the Center for Circulatory Support at U-M; and Dr. Robert Kormos, director of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Artificial Heart Program and co-director of the UPMC Heart Transplantation Program.
“The new study allows us to examine the use of heart devices earlier in the cascade of heart failure,” says Aaronson, associate professor of medicine at the Medical School.
For most patients, either a past heart attack or certain conditions such as hypertension, heart muscle diseases, abnormal heart valves or diabetes has lead to heart failure.
“Our work may advance the treatment of heart failure by evaluating whether technology now reserved for very severe heart failure is ready for application to a broader group of patients in need,” says Pagani, a cardiac surgeon and professor of surgery at the Medical School.
