SALT LAKE CITY, Utah (Ivanhoe Newswire) – In a potentially life-changing medical advance for some heart disease patients, doctors are using treatments normally used for cancer to cure life-threatening heart disease. A revolutionary treatment using radiotherapy limited to
Shannon Brooks’ heart problems began with a heart attack when she was 37 years old. A defibrillator and ablation procedure kept his heart strong for another 18 years. However, at age 55, Brooks went into cardiac arrest.
“Definitely, this and his heart almost killed me a few times. I knew he needed an ablation, but I was so worried about how weak his heart was. ” Brooks’ wife, Jen, recalled.
“By the time they have this problem of refractory ventricular tachycardia, they’ve gone through all the standard treatments and don’t have many options,” said Grant Hunter, M.D., a radiation oncologist at Intermountain Health. explains.
While a heart transplant seemed to be Brooks’ only option, Dr. Hunter had another option – it’s a very new procedure, and Brooks is only the second patient in Utah to have it. Naru — Stereotactic radiation therapy is a standard cancer treatment, but it’s a new option to treat his heart arrhythmia.
“We can do it in a non-invasive way. They just come into our outpatient facility, sit in a chair for 15 minutes, get the treatment, get up, and start walking,” says Intermountain Health’s Michael. Dr. Cutler explains.
Brooks went home the same day, grateful and amazed that such a quick and painless procedure had spared him the long and painful recovery associated with invasive surgery and a heart transplant.
“I think what’s really effective is giving people confidence and letting them know that they’re going to be okay,” Brooks says with relief.
Brooks said she was already starting to feel better before the 15-minute procedure was over. Another big advantage of stereotactic radiotherapy, he says, is that there are few, if any, short-term side effects. Because it is so new, there is no data to show what will happen in the long term. To find out, researchers will be following patients like Ogawa for years to come.
Contributors to this news report include: Jessica Sanchez, producer. Kirk Munson, videographer. Sharon Dennis, editor.
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