This device has a number of major advantages over the currently used catheters especially in cases where the heart contracts weakly (heart failure patients) due to coronary blood flow reductions present as cardiac muscle limitations which reduce energy production.

          The catheter, when placed correctly in the ostium via femoral artery catheterization selectively perfuses the coronary arteries with the patients own blood and increases the efficiency of the heart as a pump by 50%.  The catheter accomplishes this by withdrawing blood from the coronary artery while the heart is contracting (systole), thereby reducing coronary artery pressure and the internal work of the heart.  During the heart’s relaxation (diastole), the blood is returned to the coronary artery thereby increasing coronary pressure, coronary flow and coronary collateral flow.

          The manufacturing costs are estimated to be equivalent to that of the currently used intra-aortic balloon catheter.

© Cardiovascular Research Institute, February 2000
An Institute of Discovery at the University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth