Acute Heart Failure Overview
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In the United States, 1 in 5 adults will face heart failure in their lifetime and it is the leading cause of hospitalization for people 65+ year of age. Acute heart failure is a life-threatening condition that requires immediate medical attention and urgent therapy; it is responsible for the hospitalization of approximately 1 million Americans each year in the United States alone. Short term mechanical circulatory support devices, also called cardiac assist devices, are used to increase the blood circulation of acute heart failure patients and give them treatment options: time to recover and discharge, or time to qualify for a long-term mechanical support device or heart transplant.
Acute Heart Failure and Covid-19
Our hearts go out to people suffering from the COVID-19 virus who need intensive care. Many of these people, are developing cardiac injuries and cardiac related problems. It appears there may be a way in the future for CorInnova to help these patients. Over the past year, as our team has focused on acute heart failure, we have highlighted the value of the CorInnova device to provide cardiac support for patients requiring short term assist, including those with viral infections resulting in myocarditis. One of CorInnova’s physician investors communicated to us “I have spoken to several colleagues working at ICUs and I hear more and more that many patients die due to cardiogenic shock, where the hearts of previously relatively healthy patients did not respond to resuscitative measures. These were patients that had a previous ejection fraction of 50% or more and then all of a sudden, they went into asystole. This appears to be due to overwhelming acute viral myocarditis. I am thinking how great it would be to have the CorInnova device to help these patients that are now dying and take them through the acute period until the myocarditis resolves.” Others have been reporting similar observations in the press.
CorInnova has consistently identified acute myocardial injury and myocarditis for inclusion in CorInnova’s initial targeted indications for treatment for patients with acute heart failure who would benefit from short term biventricular support. Importantly, unlike VA-ECMO, CorInnova's device provides non-blood contacting support, significantly reducing the risk of adverse events of all other mechanical circulatory support devices available today. The COVID-19 pandemic clearly demonstrates the high value of having multiple readily available tools as treatment options for clinicians for patients with acute heart failure in need of hemodynamic support.