Montefiore Medical Center, New York, New York
Heart Disease Research at Montefiore Medical Center
— -- My name is V.S. Srinivas and I am an interventional cardiologist and Director of the Interventional Cardiology Fellowship Program in The Cardiology Division at Montefiore Medical Center. Our goal is to provide state-of-the art, superb care to our heart patients today, while creating entirely new diagnostic and treatment approaches for the future through our participation in important national clinical trials.
Of the dozens of important trials we are involved in, two stand out as uniquely relevant for heart patients everywhere. The first involves improved stents. For patients with blocked coronary arteries, drug-coated, or eluting stents have reduced the need for subsequent angioplasty or stenting, as compared to bare metal stents. But, existing drug eluting stents are sometimes difficult to use in patients with complex lesions. To correct this situation, Montefiore cardiologists are testing a new stent and drug delivery system that we anticipate can work for patients with these more complex coronary lesions.
Some one you know may have gone to an emergency room with life-threatening acute myocardial infarction, which is caused by the complete blockage of a coronary artery.
Montefiore now has in place the best possible standard treatment program – within 90 minutes, we identify and correct the occlusion using angioplasty in a catheterization lab, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and 365 days a year. This may be today's gold standard, but it does not work for about a third of the patients, who develop obstructions in the tiniest of arteries from clots. Over time, the patients are at risk for rhythm disorders and congestive heart failure.
Montefiore is now involved in a clinical trial in which patients will receive inhaled nitric oxide along with the angioplasty, a combination therapy which has proven to be effective in animal models. This new treatment holds out the prospect of reducing the size of the infarction compared to angioplasty alone, and improving the long term prospects for patients.
We hope that these many clinical trials offer hope to our patients and will open new avenues of treatment to improve the care and lives of heart patients across the globe.
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