Tiny, needle-covered patch to help heal damaged hearts

Each year many people suffer from heart diseases, majority of whom may develop heart failure after myocardial infarction. Scientists have now figured out a way to heal damaged hearts by transplanting them with a tiny microneedles-covered cardiac patch for the treatment.

It was already known that cardiac patch could help in healing damaged hearts, but the process to integrate the patch has been an issue. A team of scientists have found a solution for the challenge which is in form of a small polymer patch covered in microneedles that will deliver therapeutic cells directly to the heart.

The patch, as per Futurism, was tested on rats and pigs and ended in successful results. The researchers first induced the animals to have heart attacks. Then, during an open-chest surgery, they placed versions of the patches containing therapeutic cells directly onto some of the animals’ damaged hearts.

Later, after examining the hearts, researchers discovered that those rats that received the patches showed less heart cell death and also the development of new heart vasculature. Also, the treated pigs’ hearts pumped out more blood than the hearts of the untreated pigs, described the study published in Science Advances.

Co-author Ke Cheng told Science News, that before they plan to test the patch on humans, they want to replace its polymer base with something that will dissolve in the body. The researchers are also planning to figure out an implantation method that won’t require an open-chest surgery.