Can technology diminish reliance on heart transplants?
Growing risk factors in an ageing population have driven the rising prevalence of heart failure. With no new drug therapies, and existing pharmacological strategies failing to compensate for a weakening heart, other solutions must be found. Alternative technologies in particular have demonstrated promising results, suggesting we may soon eliminate the reliance on transplantation. The number of sufferers of heart failure is expected to climb to epidemic proportions. Worldwide, heart failure affects nearly 23 million people. In the US, the condition affects 4.7 million people with approximately 550,000 incidences diagnosed annually. Estimates of the prevalence of symptomatic heart failure in the general European population are similar to those in the US, and range from 0.4% to 2% of the total population. Existing gold standard pharmacological strategies are able to provide superior compensation of acute and early-stage heart failure patients, increasing their survival rates without ensur
