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Blood pressure implant receives first U.S. trials

Physician Practice Advisor, April 6, 2005

Traditionally, high blood pressure has been treated with prescription drugs
and patient lifestyle changes. But, last week, a new device developed as a means of controlling severe hypertension had its first American trials at the University of Rochester Medical Center.

According to the Associated Press, a 36-year-old woman beame the first
American to receive the implanted Rheos System: a pacemaker-like device that features a battery-powered pulse generator and a series of tiny wires that run up each side of a patient's neck, where they are able to stimulate nerves in the carotid artery.

"About halfway up the neck, these arteries have bulbs where there's a lot of nerves that sense your blood pressure," said John Bisognano, M.D., a
cardiologist with the team that performed the procedure. "We think if you
stimulate these nerves, even in a normal person, blood pressure and heart rate will go down."

The device was designed by Minnesota-based company CVRx, is about the size of an iPod, and has thus far been tested in animals and, in 2003 and 2004, in nine patients in Germany and Switzerland. Plans exist for a dozen more volunteers with severe hypertension to receive the implant in the next year. If all goes well, that will be followed by randomized trials on hundreds of patients as the device moves toward approval by federal regulators.

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