Study Shows Benefit Of Blood Supersaturated With Oxygen Following Certain Type Of Heart Attacks

Study led by Gregg Stone, M.D., published in Circulation

NEW YORK (September 15, 2009) – Results of a clinical trial published today in Circulation: Cardiovascular Interventions demonstrate that an infusion of blood that is “supersaturated” with oxygen (SS02) can reduce the amount of damaged heart muscle immediately following a life-threatening heart attack.

“The benefit of this therapy increased with the scope of the heart attack,” said Gregg W. Stone, M.D., lead author and professor of medicine at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and director of cardiovascular research and education in the Center for Interventional Vascular Therapy at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital. Dr. Stone is also the immediate past chairman of the Cardiovascular Research Foundation in New York. “The data show that heart muscle can be saved even after severe heart attack.”

Diagram of the human heart.

The AMIHOT-II study focused on patients having the most serious types of heart attacks – those with anterior ST-segment elevation myocardial infarctions (STEMIs) – and on patients treated within 6 hours. Of the 733,000 Americans who suffer acute coronary syndromes (i.e. heart attack or chest pain) each year, 361,000 (almost half) have a STEMI, according to the American Heart Association.

When a large area of the heart is damaged, heart failure is more likely, and catheter-based percutaneous coronary intervention is a procedure that can effectively open blocked arteries in STEMI patients, Dr. Stone said.

In the trial, the “supersaturated” oxygen was delivered via catheter directly to the area of the heart muscle affected by the heart attack. The size of the “infarct zone,” or the amount of damaged tissue, was significantly reduced in the patients that received the “supersaturated” oxygen.

Data from the study show that the median size of the “infarct zone” was 20 percent in the patients that received the “supersaturated” blood and 26.5 percent in the control group.

In addition, at 30 days after the treatment a key safety measure -- the rates of major adverse cardiac events – were not statistically different between the two groups. - ### -

Columbia University Medical Center provides international leadership in basic, pre-clinical and clinical research, in medical and health sciences education, and in patient care. The medical center trains future leaders and includes the dedicated work of many physicians, scientists, public health professionals, dentists, and nurses at the College of Physicians & Surgeons, the Mailman School of Public Health, the College of Dental Medicine, the School of Nursing, the biomedical departments of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and allied research centers and institutions. Established in 1767, Columbia's College of Physicians & Surgeons was the first institution in the country to grant the M.D. degree and is now among the most selective medical schools in the country. CUMC is home to the largest medical research enterprise in New York City and state and one of the largest in the country. For more information, please visit www.cumc.columbia.edu.

NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, based in New York City, is the nation’s largest not-for-profit, non-sectarian hospital, with 2,242 beds. The Hospital has nearly 2 million inpatient and outpatient visits in a year, including more than 230,000 visits to its emergency departments — more than any other area hospital. NewYork-Presbyterian provides state-of-the-art inpatient, ambulatory and preventive care in all areas of medicine at five major centers: NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center, NewYork-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/The Allen Pavilion and NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Westchester Division. One of the largest and most comprehensive health care institutions in the world, the Hospital is committed to excellence in patient care, research, education and community service. NewYork-Presbyterian is the #1 hospital in the New York metropolitan area and is consistently ranked among the best academic medical institutions in the nation, according to U.S. News & World Report. The Hospital has academic affiliations with two of the nation’s leading medical colleges: Weill Cornell Medical College and Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. For more information, visit www.nyp.org.

The Cardiovascular Research Foundation (CRF) is an independent, academically focused nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the survival and quality of life for people with cardiovascular disease through research and education. Since its inception in 1991, CRF has played a major role in realizing dramatic improvements in the lives of countless numbers of patients by establishing the safe use of new technologies and therapies in the subspecialty of interventional cardiology and endovascular medicine. For more information, please visit www.crf.org.

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New York, New York City, Physicians Surgeons, STEMI