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Heart Hope

An experimental treatment is giving desperately ill patients a new lease of life

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Heart disease is the leading cause of death here, killing one Australian every ten minutes. The number of cardiovascular disease-related operations each year continues to rise, with 150 coronary artery bypass grafts per 100,000 people and 80 percutaneous coronary interventions. A new process called angiogenesis angiogenesis could reduce the need for such procedures - and maybe even heart transplants - and their costs.

Angiogenesis involves injecting the heart with a protein called fibroblast growth factor 1 (FGF-1), explains Dr Thomas Stegmann, the German heart surgeon who pioneered the treatment and took it to the USA. "The protein is like a seed that causes new vessels to sprout, creating a network of capillaries and small arteries."

FGF-1 doesn't cure heart disease and it has no effect on the rest of the heart or existing blood vessels, explains Dr Stegmann. So some patients may eventually require another injection.

In future, this may be used for early heart disease to prevent a heart attack. So far in his studies, Dr Stegmann says, the treatment has shown no side effects.

A second, larger angiogenesis study, using an improved technique, is expected to begin this year. A needle-tipped catheter will be threaded through a vessel in the participant's leg up to the left chamber of the heart. Using X-ray guidance to find the best spot for the shot, doctors will inject the heart from the inside. It's a simple outpatient procedure with minimal recovery time.

If future trials are successful, FGF-1 could be considered for approval in the US in 2009 or 2010, Dr Stegmann predicts.

FGF-1 is also being tested in US studies for other potential benefits, such as faster wound healing in diabetics and improvement of peripheral vascular disease (PVD), which claims about 3000 Australian lives each year. For more information about FGF-1, go to cvbt.com.