Researchers are hoping to stop the progression from heart attack to heart failure with a small device called 'Therepi.' The device contains a reservoir that attaches directly to the damaged heart tissue. There exists a refill line that connects under the patient's skin reservoir and port, where therapies can be easily injected either by the patient or a healthcare professional.
After suffering from the heart attack this device could be to deliver therapy to prevent a patient from further getting heart failure.
'Therepi' device attaches directly to the damaged heart, allowing the delivery of collective therapy doses to be delivered from a port under a patient's skin to improve cardiac function. After the heart attack, a patient faces a cascade of events leading to heart failure. Scar tissues are developed due to damage caused to the area in the heart where there is blocked blood vessel. Due to scarring, the heart will remodel itself and try to cancel its effect. This process often ends in ventricular or valve failure.
Two of the most common systems lately used for delivering of drugs to prevent heart failure is inefficient and invasive. One method follows systemically drugs are delivery where drugs are delivered rather than being administered directly to the site of the damaged area. There has to control over the volume of drugs administered has and it should be limited amount to avoid toxic side effects. Often only a small amount of therapies reaches the damaged heart tissue.
The other method involves an invasive procedure wherein therapies t is directly injected into the heart muscle. This turns out to be invasive surgeries as multiple doses are required.
Therepi addresses the problems with current drug delivery methods by using localized, non-invasive therapies as many times as needed. The reservoir of devices can be implanted over the heart in just one surgical procedure.
The reservoir itself is designed in a way that it has amazing potential to holds drug for drug delivery. It is constructed out of a gelatine-based polymer; its shape is a half-spherical shape with a flat bottom attached to the diseased tissue. The flat bottom comprises of a semi-permeable membrane that can be adjusted to allow the amount of drugs materials that has to pass directly into the heart tissue.
The material used to construct the reservoir was very crucial. It should have the property similar to a sponge so it could retain the therapy in place. Which was very difficult to accomplish as the heart is constantly squeezing and moving.
The reservoir provides a unique opportunity for administration of stem cell therapies and acts as a cell factory. The cells stay within the reservoir where they produce paracrine factors that promote healing in the damaged heart tissue, rather passing through the membrane into the heart.
In a study conducted with a rat model, the device had shown to be very effective in improvising heart function after a cardiac attack. For a four-week period, researchers administered multiple doses of cells to damaged heart areas and then analyzed the hemodynamic variance in the tissue using a pressure-volume catheter and echocardiography to compare changes for a considerate period of time. Many the groups of the model had recovered some heart function and also it was seen that the hearts that received multiple dosages of cells via therapy had more cardiac function than those who received only a single injection or no treatment at all.
