Inherited dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) causes heart failure when the overstretched muscle is unable to adequately pump blood with oxygen and nutrients to the body tissues (U.S. National Library of Medicine). This fatal disease affects more than 750,000 people in the United States and is the second leading cause of heart failure death in dogs.
In addition, professor Glen Pyle from the Ontario Veterinary College (OVC) at the University of Guelph said aging populations worldwide are likely to cause dramatic increases in the rate of heart failure in the upcoming decades.
Alongside fellow OVC professor Lynne O’Sullivan and researchers from the University of Washington, Pyle examined diseased heart cells from dogs with DCM and their response to a new therapy. If the therapy worked as planned, the heart cells would resume regular muscle contraction and be able to pump blood normally.
"The cause of a substantial percentage of DCM cases remains unknown," Pyle said about their endeavors. "This is why it's urgent to develop novel agents that can improve heart function."
To apply their experimental therapy clinically, the scientists will develop a gene therapy to introduce the corrective protein into the heart muscle cells. Their study was published in the American Journal of Physiology.
As Pyle, O’Sullivan, and their team continue to make this new therapy a substantial candidate for treating DCM in both dogs and humans, you could soon have Fido to thank for this advance in medicine!
Source: University of Guelph