Australian researchers are hoping a new drug could prevent thousands of people from developing heart failure after a heart attack.
An estimated 80 per cent of heart attack survivors go on to develop progressive heart failure.
But promising pre-clinical results in mice have raised hopes the potential antibody therapy could prevent that eventuating.
It's thought an "overshooting" immune response to the heart attack leads to heart failure, says Professor Karlheinz Peter, Deputy Director of Basic and Translational Science at Melbourne's Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute.
"Evolution hasn't really foreseen we'd have heart attacks, so it's probably an overshooting of the immune system that tries to get rid of the dead cells, but clears up the surviving cells as well," Prof Peter said.
With this concept in mind, researchers at the Baker Institute trialled an antibody drug with anti-inflammatory properties on mice to see if it could prevent the immune attack'.
Researchers compared the drug's effectiveness against a control drug and no treatment in three groups of mice.
After a month, the mice that received the drug maintained heart function, while the others lost 20 per cent of their ability to push out blood with each heartbeat - a measure of heart failure.
"This is a significant result because it has the potential to substantially reduce the risk of developing heart failure after a heart attack," Prof Peter said.
Efforts are now underway to develop the drug for human application before clinical trials.
The study is published in the European Heart Journal.
SHARE ME