Columbus-based Ohio State University's Wexner Medical Center was the first participant in a trial to test a new device to treat heart failure symptoms, according to an Aug. 31 news release.
The device works by relieving pressure on the left side of the heart — which can lead to fewer adverse symptoms of heart failure like shortness of breath. It was tested on a 54-year-old man from Bellefontaine, Ohio, who was experiencing shortness of breath caused by heart failure.
"The tiny shunt device is implanted in the heart between the coronary sinus vein and the left atrium," Scott Lilly, MD, a lead expert in the trial and an interventional cardiologist and the director of the structural heart disease program at the university stated in the release. "The device placement in this location preserves the interatrial septum, which is the wall separating the right and left sides of the heart's upper chambers."
The devices' placement can improve patient outcomes and allows for the preservation of the septum for any future procedures a patient could need, according to Rami Kahwash, MD, director of Ohio State's Heart and Vascular Research Organization and a professor of clinical medicine at the Ohio State College of Medicine.