Weakened pumping organs, congenital defects and even the need for replacement: The current title topic of bild der Wissenschaft focuses on advances in the treatment of heart diseases: With improved diagnostic procedures, new surgical methods and powerful artificial heart technology, doctors can ensure a stable circulation for more and more people.
It accompanies our entire existence: the beat of the heart stands for life – its end is a symbol for death. Because no other organ is so directly relevant to the functioning of the body as the heart. The pump has to ensure a constant flow of blood, because without the supply of oxygen the entire system collapses very quickly. The ability of the human heart to operate continuously at high performance is astonishing: in the course of a seventy years of life, for example, it has carried up to 180 million liters of blood. In some people, the pump organ runs “maintenance-free” even into old age. But this is not the case with others: Heart problems are among the most common diseases and causes of death in humans.
In the first article of the three-part title topic, the bdw author Claudia Eberhard-Metzger first sheds light on the background and the most important forms of heart problems: It deals with high blood pressure, heart failure, arrhythmia, coronary heart disease, right through to infarction and sudden cardiac death. Eberhard-Metzger reports on the great advances that medicine has made in the treatment of these ailments and life-threatening situations in recent decades. In addition, the article “A matter of the heart” focuses on risk factors and precautionary measures.
Of artificial hearts and innate defects
Then the bdw author Reinhard Breuer deals with medical technology, which is used when the possibilities of keeping the natural organ at a sufficient pumping capacity have been exhausted: Artificial hearts or technical circulatory support systems can then represent an alternative to a donor organ for some patients . New techniques for pumping blood can now significantly improve the chances of survival. The author reports on the different types of these systems: they work pneumatically, electrically or magnetically. An important topic in the current developments is the optimization of the energy supply.
In the third part of the article, the bdw author Susanne Donner focuses on small hearts: One in 100 children is born with a congenital heart defect. A particularly severe form is the so-called hypoplastic left heart syndrome, in which the cardiac output is severely impaired by an underdevelopment of the left half of the heart. However, as Donner reports, thanks to advances in pediatric heart surgery, most of the small patients now survive the operations that are necessary in the first few years of life.
The articles with the title topic “Help for the Heart” can be found in the December issue of bild der Wissenschaft, which will be available in stores from November 16.