OLL Medical, now a part of Asahi Kasei Group, won FDA approval for the latest version of its TherOx System. The product is designed to deliver SuperSaturated Oxygen (SSO2) therapy to limit heart muscle loss following “widowmaker” heart attacks, aka left anterior descending ST-elevation myocardial infarction (LAD STEMI) chronic total obstruction. The system is used right after blood flow is restored during angioplasty and stent implantation to pump hyperbaric levels of oxygen straight into injured cardiac tissue. It’s important that this happens within six hours of the onset of symptoms. “SSO2 Therapy is the only point-of-care treatment for LAD STEMI patients which results in a predictable reduction in infarct size and improved left ventricular function” said Richard A. Schatz, MD, Research Director, Cardiovascular Interventions, at Scripps Memorial Hospital in La Jolla, CA, in a ZOLL press release. “This can translate to heart failure prevention and patient survival.” According to ZOLL, prospective clinical trials have shown that SSO2 Therapy leads to smaller infarcts in widowmaker patients, which should correlate with improved ventricular function, lower mortality, and less chance of heart failure. Source
