Jill Bloom
410-601-5025
[email protected]
Gretchen Genello
410-601-8677
[email protected]
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 12, 2000
SINAI HOSPITAL OFFERS CUTTING-EDGE HEART SURGERY
Sinai Hospital is offering a new treatment for patients suffering with advanced heart disease and severe chest pain, known as angina. Angina is caused when vessels carrying blood to the heart muscle become clogged or damaged thus preventing enough oxygen from getting to the heart. This results in chest pain.
Transmyocardial Revascularization (TMR), a procedure recently approved by the Food and Drug Administration and now performed at The Heart Center at Sinai, uses laser technology to create new channels in the heart muscle to re-establish direct blood flow to the heart, thereby potentially easing pain.
Using short bursts of laser energy, surgeons make between 20 and 45 small holes, the diameter of a standard sewing needle, into the heart muscle. This is done through a small incision in the chest. The procedure, conducted under general anesthesia, takes roughly two hours to perform. Patients typically remain in the hospital from 3 to 5 days.
The decrease in chest pain may mean greater freedom and a better quality of life for patients. In clinical trials, 76% of patients who underwent TMR noticed a significant improvement in their angina compared to 32% of patients treated with medications alone at 12 months.
"TMR may provide a whole new way of treating severe angina," said Alejandro Sequeira, M.D., acting head of Cardiac Surgery at Sinai Hospital. "Many people with severe angina have already undergone conventional revascularization procedures like coronary bypass surgery or angioplasty, but their angina remains unresolved and the patient continues to have chest pain. TMR has the potential to give them significant relief from their chest pain."
Candidates for TMR are those patients who have chest pain due to advanced heart disease and are not a candidate for standard therapy, such as angioplasty or coronary artery bypass; patients whose heart muscle around the affected blood vessels is healthy; and patients whose angina cannot be managed with medications or who are experiencing serious side effects from those medications.
According to the American Heart Association, more than 13.7 million people have a history of suffering from angina or heart attack. Thousands have a condition so severe that they are forced to make significant changes in their lifestyle.
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