These ineligible patients are the same ones being targeted for other experimental techniques including laser heart surgery and gene therapy, he says. As a result of his blocked artery, the man suffered severe chest pain, but he was not a candidate for bypass surgery or balloon angioplasty. The team performed the new procedure in November 1999, and the man remains pain-free and living a far more normal life today, says Oesterle. Oesterle says he was able to use a vein for the bypass because veins are not affected by atherosclerosis. No matter how badly diseased the arteries are, veins are seldom diseased.
Arteries route blood from the heart s pumping chambers to the rest of the body.
Coronary arteries branch off the heart s largest artery, the aorta, and deliver oxygenated blood to the heart muscle. Running near and parallel to some of the coronary arteries are coronary veins, which return deoxygenated blood back to the heart s pumping chambers. The procedure is performed by cardiologists in a cardiac catheterization lab. In their first patient, the heart muscle served by his clogged left anterior descending coronary artery was alive but starved for oxygen, which was the cause of his severe chest pain. Only the very top of the artery was open and receiving blood.