The last frontier: Transcatheter devices for percutaneous or minimally invasive treatment of chronic heart failure

Abstract

Heart failure has a high prevalence in the general population. Morbidity and mortality of heart failure patients remain high, despite improvements in drug therapy, implantable cardioverter-defibrillators and cardiac resynchronisation therapy. New transcatheter implantable devices have been developed to improve the treatment of heart failure. There has been a rapid development of minimally invasive or transcatheter devices used in the treatment of heart failure associated with aortic and mitral valve disease and these devices are being incorporated into routine clinical practice at a fast rate. Several other new transcatheter structural heart interventions for chronic heart failure aimed at a variety of pathophysiologic approaches are currently being developed. In this review, we focus on devices used in the treatment of chronic heart failure by means of left ventricular remodelling, left atrial pressure reduction, tricuspid regurgitation reduction and neuromodulation. The clinical evaluations of these devices are early-stage evaluations of initial feasibility and safety studies and additional clinical evidence needs to be gathered in appropriately designed clinical trials.