New hope for failing hearts

A device that helps severely damaged hearts pump may be able to do what was once thought impossible -- reverse heart failure in people who are weeks from death.

The left ventricular assist device, or LVAD, can boost the heart’s ability to function, allowing it to recover if used with the right drugs, British researchers have found. The team used the device and a combination of heart drugs in 15 patients who had severe heart failure. They said 11 of them recovered enough after about a year to have the pump removed.

Meanwhile, a second study found that statin drugs, already found to lower the risk of heart attack, stroke and other heart conditions, reduced the rate of death from heart failure by 24%. In that study, researchers at Kaiser Permanente of Northern California in Oakland and colleagues studied 24,598 adults, half of whom took statin drugs between January 1996 and December 2004.

The studies, published in last week’s issues of the New England Journal of Medicine and the Journal of the American Medical Assn., respectively, bring new hope for heart failure -- one of the most devastating chronic heart conditions.