Preparing for cardiomyoplasty: a new horizon in cardiac surgery.

The number of patients with end-stage heart failure is rapidly increasing and traditional therapies are not able to effectively meet the demand. The health care profession continues to search for innovative alternative treatments and dynamic cardiomyoplasty is viewed as an option for patients in this population. Now this procedure is being offered through clinical trials at five sites in the United States, but this number will increase and nurses across the country will want to prepare to care for patients with this interesting and unusual procedure.