A Colorado veterinarian has a bold idea for interventional cardiology: test new cardiovascular devices—and train doctors to use them—in family pets.

Brian Scansen, DVM, is an associate professor of cardiology and the section head of cardiology and cardiac surgery at the Colorado State University (CSU) James L. Voss Veterinary Teaching Hospital. For more than a decade, he’s been forging ties with human cardiologists to build what he believes could be a fruitful collaboration for both specialties.

“To me, this is win-win-win,” he told TCTMD. “For one, we can accelerate the development of devices that might be worthwhile in humans by testing them in animals that naturally have the disease, rather than trying to create some model in the laboratory that really doesn't mimic the human condition.”

For another, “we have patients”—that is, dogs—"that are suffering from left-sided congestive heart failure, that have severe chronic mitral valve regurgitation, enlarged left atrium, changes in LV systolic function, all of which is exactly the same as the course of the human disease,” he continued. “These dogs many times need some kind of intervention or they will die from their disease, and yet we don't have easy access to open heart procedures and definitive therapies.”

Read the full article about developing heart disease therapies by Shelley Wood at TCTMD.