Hackensack University Medical Center First in New Jersey to Perform Innovative LIVE Heart Failure Treatment

Procedure Focuses on Patients with Heart Failure Who Have left Ventricular Scar or Aneurysm in the Front of the Heart

Structural interventional cardiologists and heart surgeons at Hackensack University Medical Center were the first in New Jersey to treat a patient with heart failure after a heart attack using a unique device that makes a weak, enlarged heart smaller — enabling it to pump blood more efficiently, relieving heart failure symptoms, and improving quality of life.

Now, the procedure is being evaluated through a clinical trial called ALIVE (American Less Invasive Ventricular Enhancement). Hackensack University Medical Center is participating in the study, which is evaluating the LIVE procedure (less invasive ventricular enhancement) in patients with heart failure who have left ventricular scars or aneurysms on the front of the heart and whose symptoms are not responding well to medical treatment. In the LIVE procedure, an interventional cardiologist and surgeon work together, taking a hybrid approach to implant the device components through a catheter threaded into the heart via a vein in the neck and a probe inserted through a 1-inch incision in the chest. Multiple anchors inserted into the heart pinch the area of dead tissue closed, excluding the non-functioning scar tissue from the rest of the heart and reshaping the healthy part of the heart to a more normal size.

This procedure is a promising alternative to traditional open-heart surgery to remove scarred heart tissue, which requires a large incision in the chest, attachment to a heart-lung machine, and a two-week hospital stay.

“With the LIVE procedure, there is just a one-inch chest incision and the patient stays in the hospital for only two days,” noted cardiologist Joseph E. Parrillo, M.D., chair of the Heart and Vascular Hospital at Hackensack University Medical Center. “If successful, the patient experiences a relief of heart failure symptoms.”

This minimally invasive procedure has the potential to treat heart failure patients whose disease is beyond medications but not severe enough for heart transplant or implantation of an external left ventricle assist device.

Learn more about innovative cardiac care at Hackensack University Medical Center.