Grow New Arteries
Reported November 12, 2004
CINCINNATI (Ivanhoe Broadcast News) — When larger heart arteries become clogged, 
a patient often gets a stent or bypass surgery. There are many smaller arteries in the heart that can become clogged too, but they can’t be treated this way. Now doctors have found a new way to bring blood flow back to the heart.
You could call James Duke the school mailman. Each day, he delivers mail in this school district. It’s not a difficult job, but it’s one Duke has had a hard time doing. “I just had chest pain,” he says, “just hurt like someone standing on my chest all the time.”
Like a tree, the heart has three main branches that separate into smaller twigs or arteries. In Duke’s heart, his smaller arteries were blocked. “My doctor asked me if I’d like to get in this program because they said there wasn’t much more they can do, so I said, ‘What have I got to lose?’ “
Duke had a protein hormone injected directly into his heart. The goal? To grow new arteries.
“We think that this is the most appropriate use of the hormone to inject it and have it do its thing and be gone from the body,” cardiologist Lynne Wagoner, M.D., of University of Cincinnati, tells Ivanhoe.
Dr. Wagoner has done this treatment on eight patients. Gail Keller is one of them. Before the injection, there was no blood flow in an area of her heart. After the injection, a new group of arteries were formed.
“They’re very, very small, very tiny arteries but yet that’s what delivers heart flow to the heart muscle,” Dr. Wagoner says.
Duke is the first man in the United States to have the procedure. He says, “It’s amazing because I was really having a rough time there for awhile.” Since the blood is now being delivered to his heart, he can deliver mail to the schools a little easier.
This treatment was developed in Europe over the last 10 years, but is just now being studied in the United States. So far, doctors say the results with the first patients have been better than expected with new arteries grown and no side effects seen.
If you would like more information, please contact:
Sheryl Hilton
University of Cincinnati Medical Center
3223 Eden Ave., Room 165
Health Professional Building
Cincinnati, OH 45267-0550
(513) 558-4561
[email protected]
