Hormone allows heart patients to grow own bypasses

The hormone is given to patients by injection
VXtreme Video CNN's Rhonda Rowland reports

April 2, 1998
Web posted at: 6:59 p.m. EST (2359 GMT)

ATLANTA (CNN) -- It sounds almost too good to be true -- taking a drug to grow new blood vessels in the heart to prevent heart attacks.

But researchers in Atlanta this week for a meeting of the American College of Cardiology say they've discovered that patients given injections of a hormone can literally grow their own bypasses, offering an exciting new treatment option for those with heart disease.

"What we're trying to do is introduce a growth factor which is normally present in our bodies, but introduce it at a higher concentration to grow new, very small blood vessels," said Dr. Nicholas Chronos of Emory University in Atlanta.

In the 1950s, bypass surgery revolutionized the treatment of heart disease. The next milestone occurred in the 1970s with balloon angioplasty. While researchers say it is too soon to know if the hormone treatment will replace those two techniques, Dr. Timothy Henry of Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis said, "We're cautiously optimistic."

"I think we're encouraged because, really, the goal of the study was to try to find the right dose and to see [if] the drug [is] safe," Henry says.

The new treatment offers particular promise in patients who suffer from chest pain but for whom angioplasty or bypass surgery is no longer an option.

Researchers reported that in a study of 15 patients given the hormone therapy, seven patients grew new blood vessels and 13 had improvements in chest pain.

However, researchers say it will be three to four years before they know for sure that the hormone treatment is really effective.

Medical Correspondent Rhonda Rowland contributed to this report

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• CNN: In-Depth Health - Heart

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Related sites:

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• Journal of the American College of Cardiology
• American Heart Association

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