Approximately 25,000 Americans die each year from heart valve disease, but researchers at Rutgers Health and other institutions have concluded that new technology could soon help doctors reduce that number. There is.

“We are witnessing a paradigm shift in how valvular heart disease is diagnosed and treated,” said Henry Professor of Cardiology at Rutgers University and chief of the Division of Cardiovascular Disease and Hypertension at the Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. Partho Sengupta said.

Sengupta, who is also chief of cardiology at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital, an RWJ Barnabas medical facility, led a paper in The Lancet explaining what technologies exist today and which are on the horizon. I am the author. He said: “It will be important to learn and embrace the impending winds of change.”

Valvular heart disease, a disease in which one of the heart’s four valves becomes damaged or diseased, affects 2.5 percent of all Americans and 13 percent of Americans over age 80. Most cases are not diagnosed until symptoms have progressed to the point where symptoms such as shortening of the heart appear. Breathing, chest pain, fatigue. If detected early, treatment can help prevent progression and improve quality of life.

Doctors have traditionally detected heart valve disease simply by listening with a stethoscope, but new technology is improving diagnosis. Research has shown that AI can detect infrasonic heart murmurs at frequencies too low to be heard by the human ear. Additionally, electrocardiograms and wearable devices that record the heart’s electrical activity, through fluctuations in factors such as heart rate, blood pressure, and blood oxygenation, can provide artificial intelligence with the data needed to identify possible cases of valvular heart disease. (AI). Such a device could not only detect the disease in its early stages, but also monitor disease progression after diagnosis, the researchers wrote.

Primary care physicians may also play a greater role in early diagnosis. Few medical institutions currently have the equipment or expertise to diagnose valvular heart disease, but recent research demonstrates that healthcare professionals can combine portable ultrasound devices with AI to diagnose heart disease. It has been. With such technology, screening for heart valve disease could become part of routine testing for high-risk patients.

AI algorithms have the potential to further improve care by developing a digital twin of each patient using data from ultrasound and other imaging devices. This digital twin can simulate how treatments and surgeries will work for each individual to improve accuracy in choosing the actual treatment for each patient.

“The concepts I wrote about in this paper are also at the heart of what we do at the Innovation Center at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital, the RWJ Barnabas Medical Facility. “Since opening in partnership with medical schools, we have brought together clinicians, researchers, and private companies to invent and develop innovative technologies,” said Sengupta, who heads the center. He added that he believes innovation will not only help with early detection, but also deepen the understanding needed to develop new medical therapies.

There are currently no drugs approved to treat valvular heart disease, but there are ongoing trials aimed at changing this situation. Because cholesterol can cause or worsen some types of heart valve disease, drug companies are testing statins and PSK9 inhibitors (which lower cholesterol even more than statins) for aortic stenosis. ing.

Additionally, a retrospective analysis of diabetes drug trials found that a class of drugs called DPP-4 inhibitors seemed to slow the progression of aortic stenosis, thus helping to maintain nitric oxide levels around Prospective trials of these drugs that appear to fight the disease are underway. Valve tissue. Rutgers University and his RWJBarnabas Health are now offering these experimental treatments to patients in a clinical trial testing strategies to halt the progression of valvular heart disease long before surgery is needed.

This paper highlights the timely surgery and advances in transcatheter valve replacement, which does not require a large opening in the chest, making it a less invasive alternative to traditional surgery for certain patients. There is. However, the difference increases over time because the prosthetic valve tissue performs worse than the body’s own valve tissue and cannot regenerate itself as the body ages. It is broken down in a way that never happens in a functional organization that constantly rebuilds itself.

However, a new generation of more flexible prostheses that promise better performance is in clinical trials. Researchers are developing an absorbable valve prosthesis that the body will eventually replace with a functioning organic valve, just as proteins constantly replace existing tissue with new tissue as they wear out. These are especially valuable for younger patients who may require several sets of replacement valves over the course of their lives.

“The innovations, discoveries, and future of clinical care that we have envisioned at Rutgers will now be published in The Lancet, and this roadmap can be adopted globally in the fight against valvular heart disease,” said Rutgers University’s Sengupta. It’s reassuring that this is possible.” Faculty physician and member of RWJBarnabas Health Medical Group.