Russian scientists from the A. N. Bakulev National Medical Research Center for Cardiovascular Surgery of the Russian Ministry of Health, also known as the “House of the Heart”, have successfully tested a new way to combat arrhythmia that occurs after open heart surgery. This was reported by the press service of the Russian Science Foundation.
We are talking about an innovative way of introducing the drug amiodarone into the body, which is used to prevent arrhythmia. Currently, it is available in tablets, and in order to achieve the necessary concentration in the muscle tissue of the heart, the patient must take the medicine in fairly large doses. This often leads to side effects, in particular for the thyroid gland.
For this reason, Russian doctors from the "House of the Heart" were looking for a way to deliver amiodarone to the heart muscle. For this, it was decided to use it with a viscous polymer substance - hydrogel.
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Studies conducted first on animals, and then on patients at the Bakulevsky Center, showed that this gel holds firmly on the heart, does not cause inflammation of the heart tissue and effectively performs the drug delivery function.
The average age of the subjects was 62 years, in total 60 patients participated in the experiment - 47 men and 13 women. They were randomly divided into two equal groups: the control, in which the hydrogel was not used, and the experimental, the patients of which were treated according to the new method.
The results showed that only one participant from the second group developed arrhythmia. In the first group, it appeared in 11 people.
“We calculated that the administration of amiodarone using hydrogel reduces the incidence of postoperative atrial fibrillation (arrhythmia. - RT ) by 19 times. Also, no patients have found any infectious processes in the tissues of the heart, which once again proves the safety of using the hydrogel, ”concluded the project manager, Ph.D. Vladimir Schwartz.