irsday. November 16, 2000
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
Page 5 A
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(AP)-A new diagnostic tech
nique can give doctors a look into
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dents will benefit from bypass
surgery or angioplasty, a study
Found.
The technique, known as con-
rimary sot: * ras t. e nhanced magnetic reso-
tionforti* nance imaging (MRI), can see
aree to wh through the entire thickness of the
ultimate^ heart wall — typically four-tenths
of an inch — and tell doctors
which tissue can be saved and
which is dead. The common scan
ning techniques now in use read
only the surface.
The new technique “is so sen
sitive that we can pick out heart
attacks in people who did not
even know they had one,” said
Dr. Raymond Kim, who led the
study.
The researchers at Northwest
ern University and Siemens Med
ical Systems, both in Chicago,
studied 50 patients with coronary
“The data are
exciting and
quite promising.”
— Dr. George Seller
A University of Virginia
cardiologist
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artery disease. Their findings were
reported in Thursday’s New Eng ■
land Journal of Medicine.
The new technique combines
traditional magnetic signal tests
and a common dye with new
software to yield more sensitive
readings.
The researchers divided the
heart images into 72 segments. In
78 percent of segments with no in
dication of dead tissue, heart func-
hbn improved with a bypass or an
gioplasty, which send more blood
to the heart.
In segments where more than
75 percent of the tissue looked
dead, just 2 percent pumped more
strongly after bypass or angio
plasty.
“The data are exciting and
quite promising,” said Dr. George
Seller, a University of Virginia
cardiologist who wrote an accom
panying editorial.
He said more research is need
ed on sicker patients.
1
New treatments used to
test for cardiac victims
The studies could transform treatment for the millions
who suffer from minor heart attacks, severe angina pain
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Every
one hospitalized with a mild heart at
tack or bad chest pain should quick
ly get a cholesterol-lowering drug
and undergo testing for possible an
gioplasty or bypass surgery, two
large studies conclude.
The studies, released Wednesday,
could transform treatment for the 1 *
million to 2 million Americans each
year who go to the hospital with small
heart attacks or severe angina pain.
One study found that immediate
ly giving them the cholesterol-low
ering drug Lipitor — regardless of
their cholesterol levels — could re
duce the risk of death, new heart at
tacks and other bad outcomes by 16
percent.
The other study found that rou
tinely checking these patients’ heart
arteries with angiograms, then fixing
blockages when necessary with by
pass surgery or balloon angioplasty,
could reduce these events by 18 per
cent.
Lipitor is already a mainstay of
treating people with bad hearts.
However, heart attacks can disrupt
cholesterol readings, so doctors often
wait a few weeks before starting pa
tients on the medicines.
Dr. Christopher Cannon of
Brigham and Women’s Hospital in
Boston, who conducted the an
giogram research, said he believes
the results of both studies should im
mediately be put into practice.
Other doctors said the results may
indeed change medical care, but they
cautioned that doctors will need time
to sort out the findings.
“It would be
hard to recom
mend a blanket
change in the
way these pa
tients are
handled”
— Dr. Rodman Starke
Ameri can Heart Association
“Patients with a threatened or
mild heart attack benefited from im
mediate and intense treatment [with
Lipitor],” said Dr. Gregory Schwartz
of the Denver Veterans Affairs Med
ical Center, who led the study.
The study suggests that fast
across-the-board treatment is impor
tant, because patients do better no
matter what their cholesterol level.
The researchers randomly as
signed patients to get either Lipitor or
a dummy pill, in addition to all of the
usual medicines, within a day or so
of entering the hospital.
After 16 weeks of follow-up, 15
percent of the patients getting Lipitor
had died, suffered a heart attack or
cardiac arrest or needed emergency
rehospitalization, compared with 17
percent in the comparison group.
The findings raise the possibility
.Cannon’s study involved 2,220 pa
tients who were randomly assigned
to get standard care or to receive an
giograms and artery-clearing treat
ments, if necessary, within four to 48
hours after reaching the hospital.
They found that over the next six
months, 16 percent of those getting
the fast angiograms died, suffered
heart attacks or were readmitted for
bad chest pain. By comparison, 19
percent of those getting standard
treatment had these bad outcomes.
Cannon said this study is the first
to use state-of-the-art treatment, in
cluding strutsito prop open newly re
opened arteries and the anti-clotting
drug Aggrastat.
However, Dr. Rodman Starke of
the American Heart Association cau
tioned that catheterization labs nec
essary to do angiograms are not
available everywhere. .
“It would be hard to recommend
a blanket change in the way these pii-
tients are handled”
Brazilian fly helps control ants
WASHINGTON (AP) — A tiny Brazilian fly whose
larvae literally eat the heads off fire ants will be unleashed
across the South under a government program to control
the vicious ants that are a spreading menace to home-
owners, farmers and wildlife.
The Agriculture Departpient. which claims the gnat-
like phorid fly is of no danger to anybody or anything oth
er than fire ants, announced plans Wednesday to release
hundreds of thousands of them in the South and possibly
in California, where the ants have now spread.
“It is a self-sustaining biocontrol,” said Richard Bren
ner, who leads a USDA research team in Florida. “Twelve
sites per state could blanket the state within five years.”
Fire ants can make life miserable for homeowners and
gardeners and cause billions of dollars in damage every
year to air conditioners, electrical equipment and farms,
experts say. The ants can blind and even kill livestock and
wildlife, and the sting is occasionally fatal to humans. •
The ants, native to South America, have no natural en
emies in the United States. Chemical treatments are only
effective temporarily.
“Anything that will take care of these fire ants will be
fine with me, as long as it doesn’t hurt anything else or
the environment,” said Kym Bell, a Cottondale, Ala.,
woman whose 5-year-old daughter missed several days
of kindergarten this fall because of repeated ant bites on
her school playground. The stings left welts the size of a
half dollar on her skin.
The phorid fly helps keep the ants under control in
Brazil and Argentina.
The flies hover over ant mounds before darting down
and injecting a torpedo-like egg into the ants. After one
of the eggs hatches, the maggot decapitates the ant by eat
ing the brain and other contents of the head. The maggot
later turns into a fly and the cycle is repeated.
The flies do not kill enough of the ants to destroy
colonies, but they do cause enough panic to keep the ants
in check, Brenner said. The ants, which have an innate
fear of the flies, stop foraging and flee when they spot
them, giving native ants a chance to move back into the
territory.
“You’ve got to have a really good competing ant pop
ulation for the phorid flies to have an effect,” said Brad
Vinson, an entomologist at Texas A&M University.
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Billy's Video
Sim Nov 19
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Coming next week:
■
Acct 209
Financial
Statement
Mon Nov 20
9ji«n-12am
.
14
Econ 202
Econ 2<
Econ 3
Neideffer,
)2 Allen,
22 Allen
Acct 229
Part I
Mon Nov 20
6pm-9pm
Part II
Tue Nov 21
8pm~10pm
1 1
Acct 229
Deere
Test Review
Sun Nov 19
10pm-! am
IllillllSil
Math 142
Test Review
Sun Nov 19
5p«n-8pm
■lilliliiillliill
7 7',
Math IS1
Parti
Sun Nov 19
10pm-12am
Part 11
Mon Nov 20
9pm-12am
Fart HI
Tue Nov 21
9pm-12am
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Math 152
Part 1
Sun Nov 19
8pin-!0pm
Part II
Mon Nov 20
6pm-9pni
Part HI
Tue Nov 21
6pm-9pm
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