NoBlood

Jan B. Wade · #1 (**permalink**) 11-19-2003, 08:34 AM

New procedure will aid diseased hearts

By Denise Wilson
Post staff reporter

Constance Donley was an active Boy Scout leader until heart problems laid her low.

The 51-year-old mother of six from Edgewood underwent three bypass surgeries and one stent procedure to combat her coronary artery disease during a five-year period. Her heart disease got so bad in the last couple of years that she was in near constant pain and weakened to the point where she could barely stand up long enough to take a shower.

Monday, Donley became the first heart patient in the U.S. to be injected with a new growth factor protein in an attempt to grow new coronary vessels. The procedure, called angiogenesis, was done at University Hospital. It's for patients with severe coronary disease who have exhausted most other options.

The results for Donley have been encouraging.

"I have relative comfort with the pain, but I feel good otherwise," she said during a news conference Thursday, prior to being discharged from the hospital. "I can actually say I don't think I've had any actual heart pain since surgery on Monday. I always get some angina, but I haven't felt any angina."

In fact, she said she is feeling so good that she hopes to return to work on a part-time basis, perhaps as soon as next week.

Donley said she would recommend the surgery for anyone whose quality of life has been drastically affected by coronary disease. "If there's any chance at all of improving any part of your life, please go ahead and do it," she said.

A second patient, 54-year-old Claudia Robertson of Dayton, Ohio, underwent surgery Wednesday and became the second person in the U.S. to have the procedure.

The two are among 32 patients who enrolled in a national clinical trial that is being conducted at the University of Cincinnati by UC Heart and Vascular Center physicians. University is one of only four sites nationwide to participate in the trial.

Dr. Walter H. Merrill, chief of cardiothoracic surgery at the University of Cincinnati, on Monday injected a small incision in Donley's heart muscle with the growth protein factor RGF1 in an attempt to grow the new coronary vessels.

"This (RGF1) basically takes a natural body protein that we know stimulates the growth of new blood vessels. That's what the patient needs. The patient needs new blood vessels to carry blood and oxygen to the tissue," Merrill said.

He said he hoped the next several weeks would show new blood vessels are forming in Donley and her blood supply, oxygen and the heart are consequently improving.

"We hope this will be manifested by Ms. Donley feeling better, being able to be more active," he said, optimistically within 12 weeks.

Merrill was assisted in the surgery by Dr. Thomas Stegmann, chief of cardiovascular surgery at Fulda Medical Center in Fulda, Germany. Stegmann has worked on the discovery and development of RGF1 for the past 10 years, and he performed the first procedure with it in the world.

Angiogenesis is different from stem cell transplants, an innovative procedure being done at a second Health Alliance facility, the Carl and Edyth Lindner Center for Research and Education in Cincinnati, which is part of Christ Hospital. Goal of that procedure is to stimulate muscle growth.

One of the differences is that angiogenesis has proven efficacy in clinical trials in Europe, said Dr. Lynne Wagoner, cardiologist and principal investigator of the clinical study performed on Donley.

Stem cells are for those patients who already have heart failure.

"Their tissue is dead and they're trying to make new muscles," Wagoner said. "The stem cells are still just extremely experimental," she said.

Angiogenesis prompts growth of new blood vessels in heart tissue that is alive, and it also tries to prevent the heart from failing, she said.

"The hope would be that it would be used more in patients before they get to the point where they need stem cell research," she said.