WhiteSwell, a company pioneering new ways to treat acute decompensated heart failure, announced that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has granted the company a new patent for treating acute decompensated heart failure (ADHF) patients with a catheter technology designed to stimulate lymphatic drainage using a novel impeller pump combined with restrictors.
 
This patent grant adds to WhiteSwell's rapidly expanding U.S. patent portfolio covering a set of devices that leverage the lymphatic system’s remarkable innate drainage properties for fluid-overloaded ADHF patients. WhiteSwell has received 10 patent grants from the U.S. PTO in the last two years, and has a U.S. portfolio of over 40 patents granted or pending.
 
“WhiteSwell is building a strong intellectual property portfolio and an innovative technology platform to support its pioneering approach: leveraging the power of the lymphatic system to treat congestion in acute decompensated heart failure,” said Ronan Keating, WhiteSwell’s vice president of research and development. “The lymphatic system, which is vital in removing excess fluid from the body’s tissues, can be overwhelmed during an acute decompensation episode, causing fluid buildup. This most recent patent supports WhiteSwell’s catheter-based approach to improving interstitial decongestion by assisting lymphatic flow with a technologically advanced catheter solution that works with the body’s natural fluid removal process.”
 
ADHF is an episode of worsening heart failure symptoms that results in millions of hospitalizations worldwide each year, including three million in the United States alone.¹ Patients with ADHF experience difficulty breathing, fatigue, and edema (swelling) due to fluid back-up in the lungs and other parts of the body (congestion). The condition requires immediate treatment to remove excess fluid in a process called decongestion. Complete decongestion is the goal of ADHF treatment, since residual congestion at hospital discharge is the strongest predictor of rehospitalization and death.² As many as half of ADHF patients are discharged from the hospital not fully decongested, and 25 percent of ADHF patients are readmitted to the hospital within one month.^3,4,5
 
In healthy individuals, the lymphatic system continuously captures fluid from tissues throughout the body and pumps it back into the vascular system to maintain homeostasis. In ADHF patients, the heart does not pump effectively, excess fluid collects in the tissues of the body (the interstitial compartment), causing edema, and venous blood pressure rises. Excess tissue fluid and high venous blood pressure interfere with the natural fluid removal process of the lymphatic system, which can further exacerbate congestion.

References 
¹ Hollenberg et al., J Am Coll Cardiol 2019;74:1966–2011. (1M annual hospital discharges with HF as primary diagnosis and 2M hospital discharges with HF as secondary contributing diagnosis.)
² Martens & Mullens, How to tackle congestion in acute heart failure, Korean J Intern Med 2018;33:462-473
³ Girerd et al, Integrative Assessment of Congestion in Heart Failure Throughout the Patient Journey, J Am Coll Cardiol HF 2018;6:273–85
⁴ Arrigo et al, Nature Reviews Disease Primers volume 6, Article number: 16 (2020)
⁵ Rubio-Gracia, J. et al. (2018). International Journal of Cardiology, 258, pp. 185-191.