Shock Waves Can Save Hearts (non-invasive, pretty cool new heart help!)

[The Straight Story]

Shock Waves Can Save Hearts

By Aria Pearson| Also by this reporter
02:00 AM Dec, 21, 2006

Extracorporeal cardiac shock wave therapy sounds like something Capt. Picard might need after a run-in with the Borg. But it's actually a new, real-life way to treat end-stage heart disease.

A team of Japanese researchers found that blasting the heart with shock waves helps patients grow new blood vessels and increase blood flow.

Coronary artery disease -- a leading cause of death in men and women in the United States -- happens when plaque builds up in blood vessels, blocking the flow of oxygenated blood to the heart muscle. Medication, angioplasty or bypass surgery can sometimes treat the disease. But when these approaches aren't enough, the only hope is to grow new blood vessels. Gene and cell therapies can also engender new blood vessels, but those procedures require surgery, which is risky for elderly or severely sick patients.

"I felt that we needed to develop a noninvasive therapy for those patients," said Hiroaki Shimokawa, a cardiologist at Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine in Sendai, Japan. He and his team turned to extracorporeal (outside the body) shock wave therapy.

.....
Shimokawa and his colleagues aimed low-energy pressure waves at the chests of nine patients with end-stage coronary artery disease. During a typical session they hit 20 to 40 different areas of the heart with 200 pulses each. Blood flow increased and symptoms were alleviated in all patients, suggesting the growth of new blood vessels.

http://www.wired.com/news/technology/medtech/0,72270-0.html?tw=wn_index_1