Faced with a “plateau effect” of new generation cardiac drugs, cardiologists from across India began discussions on non-pharmacological therapies for heart failure.
Experts attending the three-day annual conference of Indian Society of Cardiology hosted by Madras Medical Mission are highlighting non-drug interventions such as cardiac resynchronisation therapy and stem cell solutions. Techniques such as Radiofrequency Ablation and implantable defibrillators to boost survival rates in patients with heart failure are also under the spotlight at the conference.
“The conference aims to propagate newer technologies in treating heat failure and arrhythmia therapy, Ulhas Pandurangi, electro-physiologist at MMM said.
Experts are increasingly veering around to the view that the last decade had seen little incremental benefit with newer drug therapies in the treatment of heart failure. The general experience had been that the efficacy of any new drug tapered off in a few years and eventually turned detrimental if added to the established set of drugs.
Recent surveys show that nearly 20 per cent of senior citizens have varying degrees of heart failure while one in 10 patients with a history of heart attacks had heart failure. Patients with a diagnosis of heart failure in general survive more than five years.
