New Heart Pump Helps Women Awaiting T...( It's smaller than the first-generatio...),Health

It's smaller than the first-generation device, researchers report

SUNDAY, Nov. 4 (HealthDay News) -- An implantable device that helps the heart pump blood -- and is about the size of a "D" battery, one-quarter the weight of the traditional device -- benefits women as well as men who are waiting for heart transplants.

That's the conclusion of new research that's expected to be presented Sunday at the American Heart Association annual meeting in Orlando, Fla.

"In the past, they were not as beneficial in women as in men, partly because of size," said Dr. Suzanne Steinbaum, director of Women and Heart Disease at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. "It didn't match up anatomically."

The new device in question, the HeartMate II, is an implantable left ventricular assist device that helps heart function in people with severe congestive heart failure. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is currently reviewing an application to approve the pump-like device.

According to background information for the study, women with advanced heart failure tended to be underrepresented in studies of left ventricular assist devices (LVADs). Only 9 percent to 16 percent of participants in trials of the first generation of the device were women.

The new trial included 231 patients with heart failure, 23 percent of whom were women being treated at one of 40 different U.S. heart transplant centers and were awaiting heart transplants. The device serves as a "bridge" to transplantation.

The average age of the women was 56 (the range was 20 to 69 years). Men in the study averaged 54 years old, with an age range of 17 to 68.

Coronary artery disease was more likely to be the cause of heart failure in men -- 43 percent, compared with 31 percent in women.

The women may have suffered a weakened heart because of pregnancy, cancer chemotherapy, a viral infection or some other unknown cause, the res
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