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| Vol. 25, No. 3 |
| February 15, 2003 |
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FROM THE PRESIDENT The Texas Medical Center is home to some of today’s premier heart-related research and clinical care. Since this is American Heart Month, I would like to acknowledge some of the revolutionary advances taking place among our institutions. Baylor College of Medicine researchers working at The Methodist Hospital’s Center for Cardiovascular Disease Prevention are setting their sites on new genetic markers that may be able to predict patients’ susceptibility to heart disease, and verifying the role of existing markers. A doctor at Harris County Hospital District’s Ben Taub General Hospital has developed a minimally invasive procedure to treat ventricles in the heart that are obstructed by an enlarged heart muscle. The heart muscle is injected with ethanol (alcohol) to induce a small heart attack. The scarring caused by the heart attack keeps the muscle from obstructing the blood vessel. This quick procedure has a 98 percent success rate, and most patients can resume daily activities within a few weeks. More than 500 patients with abdominal aortic aneurysms (a weakening in the aorta which can burst and become fatal), have benefited from a new procedure at The Texas Heart Institute at St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital. Doctors performing this noninvasive technique thread a catheter into an artery near the groin. When the catheter reaches the aneurysm, a stent graft is deployed through the catheter. When exposed to body temperature, the stent graft expands to a custom fit for the patient, excluding the aneurysm and providing additional support for the blood vessel. Patients are usually discharged after overnight observation. A new technique was used at Memorial Hermann Southwest Hospital for the first time last December. The procedure uses a radiofrequency “pen” to stabilize an irregular heartbeat. The technology provides surgeons with an easier and less invasive means of creating lesions in cardiac tissue. The lesions cause heart muscle cells in a very small area to die, preventing the area from conducting the extra impulses that cause rapid heartbeats. The Houston VA Medical Center is one of 30 sites in North America and the only one in Texas participating in a trial to implant a cardiac “sling” around the hearts of patients with congestive heart failure and enlarged hearts. The net-like device supports the lower chambers of the heart, thereby improving cardiac function, and reducing heart size. We salute these strides forward in cardiac care toward understanding and eliminating America’s most debilitating disease. With these skilled heart healers in our corner, TMC institutions are and will remain at the forefront of the cardiology field.
©2006 Texas Medical Center
E-Mail: tmcinfo@texmedctr.tmc.edu
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