Patients with enlarged hearts are healthier

A multidisciplinary research team at the University of Texas at Arlington will use grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to investigate new ways to improve the safety and effectiveness
of medical procedures for patients with inoperable heart enlargement.

Jun Liao, an associate professor of bioengineering, is leading a $433,000 project, "Controlled Septum Ablation for Inoperable Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy.
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One of the aims of the fund is to provide undergraduate students with cutting-edge biomedical research experience while improving UTA's research environment
.

"This project links
bioengineering innovation to clinical needs," he said.
When (co-investigator) Dr.
Pietro Bajona presented the clinical challenge of nasal septal ablation, we came up with a novel idea and started researching
.
This collaborative study offers a new path
to better health for patients with inoperable enlarged hearts.
”

Co-investigators from UTA Bioengineering include Professor Kytai Nguyen, who specializes in nanofabrication, and Associate Professor
Yi Hong, who specializes in biomaterials.
Other collaborators include Bajona, who directs the Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy Project at the Allegheny Health Network, and Dr
.
Matthias Peltz, chief of heart transplant surgery at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.
Both doctors will bring their clinical experience and perspectives to the proposed research
.

Professor Liao said patients with currently inoperable cardioenlargement were undergoing a treatment called alcohol ventricular septal ablation, in which part of the overgrown ventricular septal muscle is destroyed to reduce left ventricular outflow tract obstruction
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But the use of pure alcohol can cause complications that lead to uncontrolled death of
the heart muscle.

"Current surgery comes with some dangerous complications with a mortality rate of about 2%, including ventricular fibrillation, possible heart attack and complete heart block due to indiscriminate destruction of tissue
.
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Recent studies have even replaced pure alcohol with superglue, but this poses long-term safety and efficacy challenges
.

"Our goal is to design a novel nanoparticle ablation system to replace the pure alcohol process
.
" "We want to achieve controlled, localized tissue shrinkage for safer ablation
.
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According to the Cleveland Clinic, 600,000 to 1.
5 million Americans have an enlarged
heart.

"This study could have significant implications for hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a genetic disorder that causes abnormally thickened ventricular muscles, particularly the ventricular septum," said
Michael Cho, professor and chair of the Department of Bioengineering.
"This study highlights the University of Arlington's ability to collaborate with other clinical institutions and their specialties to advance translational and translational research
.
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