Search Here

Heart failure is a relatively common affliction. According to the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, it occurs when the heart is not strong enough to pump blood throughout the body. Affecting 5.8 million people in the United States alone, the condition can leave people weak and unable to perform simple tasks like walking up the stairs. The worst cases have a 30 percent mortality rate and require a new heart. A trial that has recently begun in the United Kingdom seeks to put the grim fate of people who suffer from heart failure to rest, by targeting the heart with a virus.

"Heart failure affects more than three quarters of a million people across the UK. Once heart failure starts, it progresses into a vicious cycle where the pumping becomes weaker and weaker, as each heart cell simply cannot respond to the increased demand," Dr. Alexander Lyon, a senior lecturer at Imperial College London and a consultant cardiologist at the Royal Brompton Hospital, said in a statement. "Our goal is to fight back against heart failure by targeting and reversing some of the critical molecular changes arising in the heart when it fails."

According to the Guardian, the first trial will enroll about 250 participants. The virus is the shell of the common cold, inserted into a blood vessel in the patient's leg. The result of 20 years of work, the virus is supposed to trigger the SERCA gene in the heart muscles to produce more of a protein. The creation of that protein signals increased calcium flow to the muscle cells which, in turn, triggers an improved heartbeat. This trial, dubbed CUPID2, will seek to discover whether the gene therapy can reduce emergency hospital admission and improve quality and length of life of patients with heart failure. The second trial will be performed with 24 patients who already have mechanical heart pumps called LVADs.

"It's bringing [the heart] back to the point where patients were pretty well, just after the initial damage occurred," Professor Sian Harding said to the BBC. "We think this is a treatment that can improve quality of life for quite a lot of people."