A research team led by investigators from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and collaborators has shown, for the first time, that it may be possible to nonsurgically treat or even prevent the damage to a major heart valve that often occurs after a heart attack. In their report published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, the investigators—including co-senior authors at Boston Children's Hospital and Brigham and Women's Hospital - describe how treatment with the antihypertension drug losartan reduced mitral valve damage in an animal model of heart attack. This sort of damage typically occurs in 25 percent of heart attack patients and can lead to heart failure and an increased risk of death.
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