(Press-News.org) ROCHESTER, Minn. — Doctors at Mayo Clinic used a new catheter-based approach to draw out resistant pockets of infection that settle in the heart, known as right-sided infective endocarditis, without surgery. Unless treated quickly, the walled-off infections can grow, severely damaging heart valves and potentially affecting other organs as well. In a recent study, over 90% of the participants had their infection cleared, and they had lower in-hospital mortality compared to those whose infections remained.
The research is part of a Mayo Clinic-led study across 19 U.S. sites involving patients who were not good candidates for surgery and whose right-sided heart infections had not responded to antibiotics. Abdallah El Sabbagh, M.D., an interventional cardiologist at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida, was the study's principal investigator. Dr. El Sabbagh presented late-breaking research findings at the Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics Symposium on Oct. 30.
High-risk patients have few treatment options when a serious infection becomes entrenched in a heart valve. People with weakened immune systems, such as those who have had a transplant or cancer treatment, are more susceptible to such infections. IV drug users and patients with implanted medical devices such as pacemakers and artificial heart valves are also more likely to develop infective endocarditis. Approximately half of the 285 study participants were people who inject IV drugs.
"Our research findings show that using a catheter to draw out most of the heart infection potentially made a significant difference in a patient's response to antibiotic therapy afterward to clear up the infection. The participants in this study were all high-risk patients, and most were not responding to antibiotic therapy alone and were considered to have significant risks with open heart surgery. We were able to show that minimally invasive catheter-based aspiration of the infection is feasible, successful and may help a significant population of patients who otherwise have no alternative therapeutic options," says Dr. El Sabbagh.
The catheter-based system was originally developed to remove blood clots from the lungs without surgery. While its off-label use for infective endocarditis shows potential as a safe and effective option, Dr. El Sabbagh notes that further prospective study is needed.
###
About Mayo Clinic
Mayo Clinic is a nonprofit organization committed to innovation in clinical practice, education and research, and providing compassion, expertise and answers to everyone who needs healing. Visit the Mayo Clinic News Network for additional Mayo Clinic news.
END
Research shows new method helps doctors safely remove dangerous heart infections without surgery
2024-10-30
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Rapid horizontal eye movement can improve stability in people with Parkinson’s
2024-10-30
Rapid side-to-side eye movements can help stabilize posture, avoid falls and maintain balance for people with Parkinson’s disease, just as they can for healthy people. This seemingly counterintuitive conclusion was reached by researchers at São Paulo State University (UNESP) in Brazil and the University of Lille in France in a study supported by FAPESP. An article on the study is published in the journal Biomechanics.
Ten individuals diagnosed with Parkinson’s and 11 neurologically healthy individuals participated in the study. All participants were over 60 and were submitted to tests that ...
Study finds COVID-19 pandemic worsened patient safety measures
2024-10-30
PHILADELPHIA (October 30, 2024) – A new study – published in Nursing Research – has found that the COVID-19 pandemic significantly impacted patient safety indicators in U.S. hospitals. The study, from Penn Nursing’s Center for Health Outcomes and Policy Research (CHOPR), examined data from the National Database of Nursing Quality Indicators to assess trends in nursing-sensitive quality indicators from 2019 to 2022. The prevention of these very distressing, uncomfortable conditions is considered to be under the nurse’s purview and directly influenced by nursing care.
The investigation found that rates of falls, bloodstream infections from ...
Costs still on the rise for drugs for neurological diseases
2024-10-30
MINNEAPOLIS – The amount of money people pay out-of-pocket for branded drugs to treat neurological diseases like multiple sclerosis (MS), Alzheimer’s, and Parkinson’s disease continues to rise, especially for MS drugs, according to a study published in the October 30, 2024, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The study found that average out-of-pocket costs for drugs for MS increased by 217% over a nine-year period.
Costs have dropped for medications where generic versions have been introduced.
“In some ...
Large herbivores have lived in Yellowstone National Park for more than 2,000 years
2024-10-30
Large herbivores like bison or elk have continuously lived in the Yellowstone National Park region for about 2,300 years according to a new analysis of chemicals preserved in lake sediments. John Wendt of Oklahoma State University, U.S., and colleagues present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on October 30, 2024.
The near-extinction of bison in North America in the 19th and 20th centuries was a major ecological catastrophe and little is known about where and how these animals lived before European colonization. In the new study, researchers attempted to determine the dominant large herbivores that lived in the northern Yellowstone National Park ...
Antarctic penguin colonies can be identified and tracked from tourists' photos, using a computer model to reconstruct the 3D scene
2024-10-30
Antarctic penguin colonies can be identified and tracked from tourists' photos, using a computer model to reconstruct the 3D scene
###
Article URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0311038
Article Title: Penguin colony georegistration using camera pose estimation and phototourism
Author Countries: U.S.A.
Funding: This work was supported in part by the NASA Biodiversity Program (Award 317 80NSSC21K1027), and NSF Grant IIS-2212046. The funders had no say in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. END ...
For patients with alcohol use disorder, exercise not only reduces alcohol dependence, but also improves mental and physical health, per systematic review
2024-10-30
For patients with alcohol use disorder, exercise not only reduces alcohol dependence, but also improves mental and physical health, per systematic review
###
Article URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0311166
Article Title: Effectiveness of exercise intervention in improving physical and mental status of patients with alcohol use disorders: A systematic review and meta-analysis
Author Countries: China
Funding: This study was funded by a grant from the National ...
Bones from Tudor Mary Rose shipwreck suggest handedness might affect collarbone chemistry
2024-10-30
Editor's Note: Please do not include the image originally uploaded with this release in any of your coverage as the licensing information has now changed. Please contact onepress@plos.org for any questions. Updated: October 30, 2024
A new study of human skeletal remains from the wreck of the 16th century English warship Mary Rose suggests that whether a person is right- versus left-handed may influence how their clavicle bone chemistry changes as they age. Dr. Sheona Shankland of Lancaster University, U.K., and colleagues present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on October 30, 2024.
The ...
Farewell frost! New surface prevents frost without heat
2024-10-30
Someday, people might finally say goodbye to defrosting the freezer or scraping frost off slippery surfaces. Northwestern University engineers have developed a new strategy that prevents frost formation before it begins.
In a new study, the researchers discovered that tweaking the texture of any surface and adding a thin layer of graphene oxide prevents 100% of frost from forming on surfaces for one week or potentially even longer. This is 1,000 times longer than current, state-of-the-art anti-frosting surfaces.
As an added bonus, ...
Similarities in brain development between marmosets and humans
2024-10-30
The development of primate brains is shaped by various inputs. However, these inputs differ between independent breeders, such as great apes, and cooperative breeders, such as the common marmoset (Callithrix jacchus) and humans. In these species, group members other than the parents contribute substantially to raising the infants from birth onwards.
A group of international researchers led by Paola Cerrito from the University of Zurich’s Department of Evolutionary Anthropology studied how such social interactions map onto brain development in common marmosets. The study provides new insights into the relationship between the timing of brain development ...
Can we protect nerve cells from dying?
2024-10-30
LEUVEN October 31st - Alzheimer’s disease is characterized by a progressive loss of nerve cells leading to a decline in memory and cognition. A team of researchers at KU Leuven and VIB explored the molecular sequence of events in this cellular demise and identified specific inhibitors that could prevent the loss of nerve cells in different mouse models of the disease. The findings open up new research avenues in the search for therapies that could halt or prevent the accumulation of brain damage occurring in ...