By Sola Ogundipe

A new operation has been created that has the potential to improve life expectancy and prevent re-hospitalizations for cardiovascular disorders.

Doctors were able to “regenerate” cardiac muscle for the first time following bypass surgery by utilising moderate shockwaves.

Patients who received the medication showed clinical improvement a year later when compared to those who did not receive it.

In addition to the heart pumping more oxygen throughout the body, individuals who received the treatment reported being able to walk for six minutes without stopping and having a higher quality of life than those who did not receive the treatment.

The treatment could help millions of people. Heart bypass surgery offers a lifeline to patients experiencing a sudden block in their heart’s blood supply. The procedure creates a detour for blood to flow around blocked arteries, improving blood flow and oxygen delivery to the heart muscle.

While it effectively maintains heart function, it can’t improve it. This paves the way for research into potentially regenerating damaged heart muscle after surgery, offering hope for an even brighter future for patients.

In a trial involving just over 60 patients in Austria, researchers used a machine – dubbed a “space hairdryer” – to apply mild sound waves shortly after a bypass. It was thought that the 10-minute procedure would stimulate the growth of new vessels around the area damaged or scarred after a heart attack.

A year after surgery, the amount of oxygenated blood pumped by the heart had increased by 11.3 percent in shockwave patients and 6.3 percent in the control group who did not get the treatment, according to the study, published in the European Heart Journal. Researchers now hope to conduct a larger trial to confirm their findings.

“The treatment was both feasible and safe. The results of the trial suggest that this treatment strategy could contribute to solving the unmet clinical need for myocardial regeneration in patients suffering from ischaemic heart failure,” they wrote in the paper.

A blockage or disease of the heart or blood vessels is described by the general term cardiovascular disease and is the leading cause of death globally, killing an estimated 18 million people each year, according to the World Health Organisation.

Dr Sonya Babu-Narayan, associate medical director at the British Heart Foundation and consultant cardiologist, said, “Heart failure can be an extremely debilitating condition, estimated to affect millions. Ischaemic heart disease, or a lack of blood supply to the heart muscle, is known to be the biggest single contributor to the number of heart failure patients.

“What’s exciting about this trial is that a year later, people who had shockwave therapy to the heart during their operation had better heart function and fewer symptoms than those who didn’t. Bigger and longer trials are now needed to research the long-term effects.”