Prevention of Chronic Heart Failure

Although reperfusion of the heart reduces immediate heart damage and prevents short-term death from heart attacks, the long-term impact for half of heart attack patients is dire. Specifically, half of heart attack patients will have disease progression leading to left ventricular heart remodeling, loss of heart function, and a high mortality rate within months to a year or two after the heart attack. We now know the key driver of disease progression and why other attempts at preventing chronic heart failure have met with limited success. Armed with this knowledge, we have tested therapeutics in large animal models with outstanding results and are pursuing therapeutics to suppress disease progression and chronic heart failure (awarded patent).

Chronic Heart Failure is now Epidemic

Although strides have been made, cardiovascular disease is still the number one cause of death in the United States and much of the rest of the world. Prevention is, of course, the best means to combat cardiovascular disease, yet methods for identifying patients at risk for heart attacks are archaic, difficult for many patients to perform, and only provide surrogate information for those where more than 70% of blood flow is blocked: earlier detection and direct analysis of cardiac blood oxygen has to blood flow and other factors impacting risk for heart attacks hve eluded researchers despite multiple efforts. Then, once a heart attack occurs, the prevailing models for disease progression have not translated to highly effective therapeutics and have not removed cardiovascular disease as the number one killer in the U.S. Even some of the more recent therapeutics that are showing some benefits only treat the intermediates in disease progression: they do not target and eliminate the root cause of disease progression – in part due to the belief in the current dogma of disease progression.