 |
 |
| |
Reported January 15, 2003
Cooling the Heart
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (Ivanhoe Newswire) -- When a person has a heart attack, every second counts. To minimize damage, the goal is to treat patients within 30 minutes of their arrival to the emergency room. Even then, the damage to the muscle can be substantial. Now doctors are able to minimize the problems.
It was just like any other day for Betty Alexander. She tells Ivanhoe, "We got up, drank coffee, read the paper, had breakfast."
Then she had a heart attack.
"I had never had any heart history. We have eaten what I thought was heart healthy for quite some time -- many years -- and so this was a complete surprise," she says.
Today, Alexander is recovering well, thanks, in part, to an experimental treatment called COOL MI. It cools the body to 91 degrees directly following a heart attack.
Cardiologist Warren Johnson, M.D., of Mid-America Heart Institute in Kansas City, Mo., tells Ivanhoe, "[The cooling process] helps protect the heart muscle while we’re getting the arteries open and also provides the heart with some additional recovery time."
During a heart attack, the heart continues to suffer damage until the blocked arteries are re-opened. Dr. Johnson says, by cooling the body intravenously, they can preserve more of a patient’s heart muscle.
Early studies show, on average, the amount of tissue death in the heart was nearly 60-percent less in patients who received the treatment.
"This is a new novel idea for treating heart attack patients that I think is going to make a big difference in many of our patients," says Dr. Johnson.
Alexander says she feels better now than she did before her heart attack. Still, she’s not taking chances. "There are things that I want to do and I don’t want to wait to do them. I want to do them as soon as possible," she says.
COOL MI is still under study, but Dr. Johnson hopes to see FDA approval in the next year or two. He says any heart attack patient can potentially be a candidate for this treatment.
If you would like more information, please contact :
Andrea M. Ernst
Mid-America Heart Institute
Saint Luke's Hospital
4401 Wornall Rd
Kansas City, MO 64111
(816) 932-5778
E-Mail : aernst@saint-lukes.org
|
|
|
|
|