New York Magazine Medical Marvels
New York Magazine ran a series in their June 19th issue on Medical Marvels. Several featured patients with cardiovascular disease. Here are some excerpts.
Medical Marvel #1: Conductor, 89, With Heart Problems, Too Old and Sick for Surgery
Dr. Howard Cohen: He badly needed an angioplasty, but given his age—89 at the time—any surgical procedure would have been high-risk. The attending doctors sedated Labovitz and placed him on a respirator while they considered how to proceed. I was approached to see whether I could do an angioplasty with a device I helped develop called the TandemHeart. It’s an external heart pump that’s inserted through an artery in the leg and allows afflicted heart muscles to rest after heart attacks or during surgery. The idea is to support the heart—in a way that minimizes further trauma—so even if the heart stops working during surgery we can keep the patient alive until we fix the problem.
Medical Marvel #8: Mother of one, pregnant with triplets. Torn aorta about to burst.
Dr. Frank Seifert: Roseann’s [aortic] dissection had already gone down toward her heart. If the tear hit her coronary arteries, she’d have a heart attack, and if it hit the great vessel, she’d have a stroke. Or it could just break right through the aorta and she’d bleed to death.
Medical Marvel #9: Fifty-year-old woman needs rare heart and lung transplant.
Dr. Valentin Fuster: Her only option was to have a heart-lung transplant—she’d never make it without one. This is an extremely rare operation—there were only 39 done in the United States in 2004, and it carries a high mortality rate. Still, we wanted to take on that risk because it was Maria’s only chance to live.
Medical Marvel #11: Four siblings with potentially fatal kidney disease. All need transplants.
Dr. Alan Benvenisty: The family has polycystic kidney disease, a heritable illness that can lead to renal failure, which can affect your heart, mental status, electrolytes, and even result in sudden death—it’s one of the more deadly genetic diseases. Their father had the disease. He died in his late thirties and passed it on to his children. Usually, not all the children will get it, but in this case, they all got it. I’ve performed six transplants on them. I’ve known them for 22 years.
When medicine works, it works spectacularly.
Thanks to Kim for the tip.
Technorati Tags: heart, heart disease, angioplasty, cardiovascular disease, cvd, polycystic kidney disease, aortic dissection
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