The Medical University of South Carolina recently became the first academic medical center, and second medical center in the world, to use a minimally invasive procedure to implant a heart failure treatment device, it said April 9.
Cardiologists used the Barostim Neo System, a device that uses electrical impulses to stimulate the nerve regulating blood pressure, inducing blood vessels to relax. Instead of implanting the device through an incision in the neck, surgeons implanted it using a wire.
"I believe there will still be patients who need to have the surgical implant, but this allows us to select patients with the appropriate anatomy to offer them a less invasive implantation of the device," said Jean Marie Ruddy, MD, vascular surgeon and principal investigator for the trial of the new implantation method at the Charleston-based facility. "As many fields have moved toward patient-specific decision-making, I think this is another example of how we can apply that to management of heart failure patients."