Boston Scientific Supports Innovative Cardiac Procedures

The grant funding from Boston Scientific to Saint Luke's is intended to advance medical research into important clinical questions related to chronic total occlusion (CTO), a condition affecting one in six patients found who have at least one artery that is completely blocked due to plaque. Historically, CTOs have been treated with medications or bypass surgery, as many physicians are reluctant to open them with angioplasty due to the high risk, time involved, and the complexity of manipulating a guide wire through an artery and past the CTO blockage.

Aided by improved technologies and techniques, skilled angioplasty experts at Saint Luke's have achieved success rates in restoring blood flow as high as 90% using emerging hybrid techniques to treat difficult CTO blockages using nontraditional means to manipulate and open the blocked arteries. But despite the improving success rates and better procedural efficiencies for CTO angioplasty with the hybrid technique, knowledge gaps remain that can only be filled by rigorous medical research.

The grant funding from Boston Scientific will advance medical research into important clinical questions about CTO angioplasty. Saint Luke's has already organized the Open CTO registry, enrolling consenting patients at 10 hospitals across the United States currently using hybrid CTO approaches. A total of 1,000 patients in the study will provide the statistical power to examine the safety, effectiveness, appropriateness, health outcomes, and cost-effectiveness of the hybrid approach to CTO angioplasty. Patient enrollment will begin in early 2014.

“CTOs are often called the 'final frontier in cardiology' because it takes a dedicated team and operators skilled in multiple techniques to successfully open a totally blocked artery using a minimally invasive angioplasty,” said interventional cardiologist J. Aaron Grantham, MD, who will serve as the research study's principal investigator. “Angioplasty for CTO offers symptom relief and a minimally invasive alternative to potentially thousands of patients who may welcome an alternative to surgery, patients for whom bypass surgery is too risky, and others whose surgically repaired arteries have reclogged.”

“Restoring blood flow to a totally occluded vessel may provide symptom relief and improve quality of life, ventricular function, and survival,” said Keith Dawkins, executive vice president and global chief medical officer of Boston Scientific. “Boston Scientific is committed to transforming lives through innovative medical solutions and is pleased to support Saint Luke's work on this important study which will provide physicians with a greater understanding of the benefits of treating chronic total occlusions.”

Related Links:
Saint Luke's Mid America Heart Institute
Boston Scientific