Aussie-led research makes advances to mend broken heart

An international team of biomedical researchers have made significant advances to mend a broken heart, developing a polymer patch that improves the conduction of electrical impulses across damaged heart tissue.

While chocolate and romantic comedies are treatment of choice for hearts broken from lost love, treating the medical condition often requires invasive surgery, which leaves scars on the fragile muscle tissue. The scars however slow and disrupt the conduction of electrical impulses, which leads to potentially fatal disturbances of the heart rhythm.

An international team of researchers led by University of New South Wales biomedical engineer Dr Damia Mawad instead created a flexible polymer patch made of chitosan -- a polysaccharide found in crab shells that's used as a food additive, the polymer polyaniline and phytic acid from plants that switches the polymer to its conductive state.

"Conducting polymers work when they are dry, but most become non-conducting in a very short time when placed in bodily fluids," Mawad said in a statement on Thursday.

"Our suture-less patch represents a big advance. We have shown it is stable and retains it conductivity in physiological conditions for more than two weeks, compared with the usual one day of other designs."

"No stitches are required to attach it, so it is minimally invasive and less damaging to the heart, and it moves more closely with the heart's motion."

The research however is in its infancy with the patch only being applied to laboratory rats, finding electrical conductivity across the scar tissue did improve.

The technology will now be used to gain an insight into the interface between material and tissue, Mawad said.

"We envisage heart attack patients eventually having patches as a bridge between the healthy and scar tissue, to help prevent cardiac arrhythmia," Mawad said. Endit