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| Vol. 22, No. 9 |
| May 15, 2000 |
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Texas Heart Institute Announces Promising Results from Heart Laser Study by MAUREEN KOVACIK Texas Heart Institute Cardiologists from the Texas Heart Institute at St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital released the 12-month results from clinical trials of the laser procedure called percutaneous transmyocardial revascularization (PTMR) which was evaluated for the relief of severe, debilitating chest pain known as angina pectoris. These findings were announced by Texas Heart Institute cardiologist Dr. Emerson Perin, a principal investigator of the study, at the "Late-Breaking Trials in Interventional Cardiology" session of the American College of Cardiology Interventional Symposium 2000. Patients were eligible for this randomized study if conventional treatments, such as medications, angioplasty or coronary bypass surgery, were unsuccessful in relieving their angina. After undergoing PTMR, 55 percent of the patients indicated significantly decreased angina at 12 months. Patients also experienced significant improvements in exercise tolerance. "We are very encouraged by these results," says Dr. Perin. "This relatively low-risk procedure shows great promise for those patients with no other options who continue to suffer from severe angina despite traditional therapies." PTMR is a non-surgical procedure performed under local anesthesia in the cardiac catheterization laboratory. A small incision is made in the patient's leg and a catheter is threaded through the artery to the heart. A fiber-optic laser bundle is then inserted in the catheter and fired approximately 12 to 26 times to create small channels in the myocardium, or muscle, of the heart's left ventricle. These channels allow blood to flow to oxygen-starved areas of the muscle, alleviating angina. It is also believed that as these channels heal, they promote the development of new blood vessels, known as angiogenesis, which will continue to provide oxygen-rich blood to the muscle. Cardiologists in this study used a holmium laser manufactured by Eclipse Surgical Technologies, Sunnyvale, Calif. The entire procedure takes about one hour with the laser portion lasting up to 30 minutes. Patients' hospital stays are usually only a couple of days.
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