Date: Fri 23-Apr-1999

Publication: Hea

Author: DONNAG

Quick Words:

cardiac-treatments

Full Text:

HEALTH MONITOR: St Vincent's Hospital Tests Promising Cardiac Laser Treatment

BRIDGEPORT - An experimental cardiac laser surgery procedure is now available

at St Vincent's Medical Center. The procedure relieves severe chest paint by

using a laser to create channels in the heart muscle to increase blood flow.

Edward M. Kosinski, MD, chairman of the Department of Cardiovascular Medicine,

said St Vincent's is one of only 12 hospitals in the United States offering

the procedure which eases chest pain and severe coronary artery disease.

The Harvard trained cardiologist said that St Vincent's has treated more than

30 patients with the experimental procedure and that the results are very

promising. "The early research suggests that it is an extremely safe and

effective procedure," Dr Kosinski said. "We're finding that it is an adjunct

to angioplasty, especially in high risk patients."

Dr Kosinski said that by creating a new source of blood for the heart, the

procedure is particularly useful for patients who cannot benefit from

angioplasty or open heart surgery. The national study also found that heart

patients with diabetes benefit from the procedure.

Officially known as "percutaneous transluminal myocardial revascularization

(PTMR)," the procedure combines lasers, computers and catheters to provide a

non-surgical option to increasing blood flow to the heart.

Laser energy is directed through a thin catheter or tube inserted into the

femoral artery and snaked through the circulatory system inside the heart. The

laser drills tiny holes in the walls of the heart's main pumping chamber.

"What we're doing is drilling upwards of 15 to 20 pin size holes about a

quarter an inch deep in the affected heart muscle," said Dr Kosinski. "The

procedure works by injuring the tissue, causing the body's own internal

processes to create new capillaries the increase blood flow to the area we

damaged." The procedure brings more blood (and the oxygen it carries) into the

heart muscle and relieves the severe pain known as angina pectoris.

In 1998, St Vincent's completed Phase I of the clinical trial which assessed

the safety of the Clipse Surgical Technologies's Holmium YAG laser. Phase II

of the study of evaluate PTMR in conjunction with angioplasty and for

treatment of totally occluded vessels is now underway.

Dr Kosinski said St Vincent's was selected to participate in the heart laser

trials because it has one of the busiest angioplasty (insertion of catheters

into blood vessels for diagnosis and treatment of artery disease) programs in

the northeast. St Vincent's has also been a leader in the clinical testing of

drugs and products used to treat heart disease. It is one of only six open

heart centers in Connecticut.

The St Vincent's heart program also received a boost when the medical center

recently affiliated with New York Presbyterian Healthcare, including the

medical centers at Columbia and Cornell. The affiliation has already led to

the opening for an electrophysiology lab to treat irregular heartbeats.