Research

The Heart Institute’s new Chief of Cardiac Surgery, Dr. Marc Ruel, discusses the importance of research and innovation, his vision for surgery at the Heart Institute and the future of cardiac surgery as a discipline.

The Heart Institute’s landmark RAFT trial, released in 2010, showed that cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) in combination with an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) device reduces the risk death by 24 per cent in patients with mild to moderate heart failure. Two new studies mined that data further.

Successfully managing heart failure is one the looming issues for cardiovascular medicine, with prevalence expected to grow significantly over the coming decades. The plenary session “Engineering Success in Heart Failure” looked at where things are headed, from therapy to devices to delivery of care. Now that we know that the heart does regenerate, albeit slowly—nine to 10 times in a lifetime—various types of stem cells offer intriguing possibilities for the treatment of heart failure. For recent developments, see “Stem Cells for Cardiac Repair” within our AHA coverage.

Within 30 days of non-cardiac surgery, one in 10 patients will have a major vascular complication. In the CCC State-of-the-Art lecture, Dr. PJ Devereux of McMaster University brought to the fore work being done to reduce myocardial injury after non-cardiac surgery (MINS).

Regenerative medicine was widely discussed at CCC 2012, and Heart Institute researchers continue to innovate in harnessing the body’s own stem cells to fix or replace damaged cardiac tissue.