LEXINGTON — Judy Wasson was on top of the world after angioplasty to relieve a clogged coronary artery nearly two years ago.

        For months, the Bourbon County woman had experienced chest pains and sluggishness that kept her from doing even the most routine household chores. But within days of the procedure — in which a tiny balloon is inflated to open the clogged artery and a brace, or stent, is inserted to keep it open — Ms. Wasson felt like a new person.

Dr. John Gurley (left) points to a monitor to show a colleague the arteries of a patient undergoing a new angioplasty procedure at the University of Kentucky Hospital in Lexington. (Associated Press photo) | ZOOM |

        “I couldn't cook, I couldn't take care of my animals or my husband. ... I was just miserable,” she said. “Then I had the angioplasty, and all of the sudden I felt 10 years younger. I hadn't felt that good in years.”

        It wasn't long, however, before the symptoms returned and Ms. Wasson found herself undergoing a second procedure to repair the same artery, which had become clogged not with cholesterol but with scar tissue from the first angioplasty.

        In all, Ms. Wasson underwent eight procedures — including the insertion of four stents — on the same artery in less than two years. Each time, scar tissue built up along the artery wall where the angioplasty was performed.

        “It got to be frustrating because each time I thought it was going to be the last,” she said. “After the fourth or fifth one, I asked if they could just put a little zipper on me to make it easier to get back in there.”

        Now, doctors at the University of Kentucky's Gill Heart Institute think they have a powerful weapon in the battle to keep arteries from reclogging following angioplasty — a weapon that ultimately could prevent many more-invasive heart bypass surgeries.

        A new radiation system used for the first time at the University of Kentucky Hospital this week has been found to keep arteries from renarrowing after they have been opened with stents through angioplasty.

        Ms. Wasson, 50, underwent the procedure, called vascular brachytherapy, on Wednesday. She appeared at a news conference with her doctors Thursday to discuss the process, which she hopes will keep her out of the hospital for a long time.

        “I'm keeping my fingers crossed this time,” she said. “I don't want to get my hopes up too high, but from everything I've been told this may turn out to be a long-term solution.”

        Nationally, about 3,000 patients have undergone vascular brachytherapy. The University of Kentucky's Chandler Medical Center is the first in Kentucky to make the procedure commercially available.

        The technique, which adds about 10 minutes to the normal angioplasty procedure, involves opening the artery and delivering a small dose of radiation into the artery wall to prevent the growth of cells that would produce scar tissue, said Dr. John Gurley, director of catheterization and cardiovascular interventions at the Gill Heart Institute.

        Tiny seeds of a radioactive isotope, called strontium-90, are driven into the damaged artery wall through a catheter using a hydraulic pressure gun. The seeds are removed after several minutes, and the patient's exposure to radiation is about the same as that during a common chest X-ray, Dr. Gurley said.

        “Balloon angioplasty and coronary stents are very effective treatment for coronary artery disease and very successful at opening obstructed arteries,” he said. “But the limitation for these procedures has been that between 20 and 50 percent of the arteries after successful treatment will renarrow because of an accumulation of scar tissue during the normal healing process.

        “When this occurs, it can be a very difficult problem to manage. And there's nothing medically we can do to predict who will get this scarring. Many times, bypass surgery has been the only way to fix the problem.”

        Heart bypass surgery involves grafting veins or arteries from the aorta to the coronary artery, bypassing the obstructed area.

        Dr. Gurley said the procedure adds about $4,000 to a typical angioplasty.
       

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