A controversial heart pump from Abiomed reduced the number of deaths in severe heart attack patients, according to a highly anticipated randomized trial presented at the American College of Cardiology conference and published in the New England Journal of Medicine on Sunday.
The trial, which took 10 years to enroll, followed 355 patients for 180 days in Denmark, Germany, and the United Kingdom who came into the hospital with a heart attack and dangerously low blood flow, known as cardiogenic shock. Half of the patients received standard care, which typically included medication and about 20% of the time included life support, and the other half received Abiomed’s left-sided heart pump, called the Impella, for 48 hours.
Around 46% of patients died in the device group, whereas 59% died in the standard care group. The research team found that 24% of patients in the device group had complications, which included serious bleeding and the need for kidney therapy, compared to 6% in the control group.
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