In the realm of cardiac health, an exciting new study has cast light on the intricate details of our hearts, revealing significant differences between the left and right ventricles' fibroblasts. This research, conducted by a team of dedicated scientists from the...
For children diagnosed with complex heart conditions like hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM), the diagnosis can be frightening for families and challenging for healthcare providers since the trajectory of the condition is often uncertain. As a leading cause of sudden...
An innovative cardiovascular start-up, HDAX Therapeutics, is the latest company to win $250,000 in funding following another year of the Ted Rogers Centre for Heart Research’s Entrepreneurship for Cardiovascular Health Opportunities (ECHO) program. The ECHO program...
Several members of the Ted Rogers Centre for Heart Research (TRCHR) participated in Vascular 2023, a five-day conference held in Montreal from October 25-29. The conference is a hallmark event organized by several Canadian specialist and research organizations,...
Researchers at the Ted Rogers Centre for Heart Research have developed an innovative approach to better understanding the complex signaling mechanisms underlying heart failure. A recent publication in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) offers...
The Rogers Foundation announces a second landmark gift, building on its $130 million gift in 2014, to sustain the Ted Rogers Centre for Heart Research in perpetuity and bring the promise of precision cardiac health to patients across Canada and globally. In 2014, the...
On the fourth floor of the Peter Munk Cardiac Centre, Gail Power takes great pleasure in watching the smile return to the face of Robert, her husband of 44 years. Especially since it was only a few short months ago that Robert’s chances for survival looked bleak.
“Life was not worth living,” says Robert, recalling the daily struggles he coped with as his heart function deteriorated. “I had no energy at all. “I could not play with my grandkids or help out friends with household projects. My heart condition deteriorated to a point where I had difficulty with simple tasks such as dressing and taking care of myself.”
In 2006, to help control his arrhythmia, doctors treated Robert with an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD). It helped control abnormal heart rhythms and contain any dangerous arrhythmias, but as his condition worsened, the ICD began to fail.
Eight years later, Robert’s heart function had regressed to stage D heart failure, where conventional therapies and symptom management strategies no longer worked.
On Halloween Day, 2014, a surgical team led by Dr. Vivek Rao, chief cardiovascular surgeon at the PMCC, successfully implanted a novel mechanical device into Robert’s heart. The surgery was part of a first-in-Canada clinical trial for the HeartMateTM. It was the most advanced technology available in mechanical circulatory support.
“Robert’s options were rapidly running out and given the increasingly weak state of his health, a transplant was simply not an option,” says Dr. Rao. “This assistive device was his only real lifeline.”
The HeartMateTM III is designed to replicate the pumping action of a heart that is too fragile to pump on its own by replacing the failing muscle’s left ventricle. For a high-risk patient like Robert, it meant less invasive surgical implantation, reduced blood trauma and better portability with an active lifestyle. Dr. Rao says it should prove to be a more durable device that has a greater handling of the blood flow, and anticipates fewer adverse complications than older models.
“The device takes some time getting used to,” explains Robert. “I know the healing process takes time, but I’m feeling better each and every day. I have hope again.”
For Gail, the advantages of Robert’s new heart pump have been immediate. “There really wasn’t much of anything that Robert could do anymore,” she says. “I’ve seen a big change in him in such a short time. And he smiles a lot more now.”
