At 52, Kathy Burks thought she was too young and too active to have a heart attack.
"I was getting in my car in the garage," Burks told Ivanhoe. "That’s when I felt the chest pain. I just sat down. I just dialed 911, and at that time my hand just kinda went numb. I said, it’s something with my heart, because my chest has just never hurt like that before.”
Her artery was blocked. Standard treatment: angioplasty, where a balloon at the end of a catheter expands a stent and reopens the artery.
But a sudden rush of blood into a reopened artery after a heart attack can damage the heart muscle.
“It turns out that how patients do after a heart attack is largely dependent on the final size of the heart attack or the damage that is incurred on the muscle," Habib Samady, M.D., an interventional cardiologist at Emory University in Atlanta, Ga., told Ivanhoe.
Now cardiologists are testing a new technique called stuttering -- inflating and deflating the balloon several times to restore blood flow gradually.
“Our idea is to restore this blood flow in a stuttering fashion to make the muscle accept the fresh blood in a way that won’t cause that much damage," Dr. Samady said.
Studies show stuttering reduces injury as much as 50 percent, improving the odds of recovering.
Two months after surgery, Burks is setting her own recovery pace and heading toward a healthier future.
“That means longer life," Burks said.
The stuttering procedure was developed several years ago at Emory University and has been tested in small studies in France, Israel, Denmark and Canada. Studies involving patients in the United States are still in progress.
BACKGROUND: Coronary angioplasty is used to open a blockage in the heart artery when it is narrowed by atherosclerosis. Atherosclerosis is a condition in which plaque builds up on the inner walls of the arteries. The plaque build-ups may happen to any artery, but when it affects the coronary arteries, which supply the heart muscle with oxygen-rich blood, angioplasty is the common medical procedure used. Coronary artery disease (CAD) is caused by smoking, high amounts of certain fats and cholesterol in blood, high blood pressure, and high amounts of sugar in the blood due to diabetes or insulin resistance. Having your coronary arteries narrowed or blocked can ultimately lead to heart attack.
NEW APPROACH: Post-conditioning approach is similar to the standard angioplasty procedure in that it still opens up the artery, but instead of restoring the blood flow briskly, the post-conditioning procedure restores the blood flow in a stuttering fashion. The standard angioplasty procedure uses a balloon at the end of a catheter to expand a stent and reopen the artery. This often causes a sudden rush of blood into a reopened artery, which can cause injury to the heart muscle. This new approach allows blood flow to be restored for about 60 seconds, then rests for 60 seconds, and then re-inflates the balloon for 60 seconds. This is repeated three times. This creates alternating restoration and occlusion of blood flow which limits the damage to the muscle of the heart and leads to better long-term outcomes.
RISKS: Risks of angioplasty provided by the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute include; bleeding from the blood vessel from catheter, damage to blood vessels from catheter, allergic reaction to the dye given during surgery, irregular heartbeat (arrhythmia), the need for emergency coronary artery bypass grafting if the artery closes down instead of opening up, damage to kidneys caused by dye used, heart attack and stroke. Less than two percent of people die during angioplasty, and sometimes chest pain occurs during surgery because the balloon briefly blocks blood supply to the heart. All of these risks are higher for people aged 75 and older, those who have kidney disease or diabetes, those who have poor pumping function in their hearts, those who have extensive heart disease and women.
TREATMENTS: Other treatments for atherosclerosis include following a healthy eating plan, routine physical activity, healthy weight management, limits on alcohol intake, stress reduction and quitting smoking. To help slow the process of atherosclerosis or reverse it, your doctor may prescribe medication to help lower cholesterol or blood pressure or to prevent blood clots from forming.
FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:
Kathi Baker
Public Relations
Emory Health Sciences
(404) 227-1871
