Cardiologists at
Southeast Georgia Health System recently began offering a new treatment option for patients with severely
calcified coronary artery disease. The innovative technology is a novel
application of lithotripsy, an approach that uses sonic pressure waves,
also known as shockwave energy.
“Sonic pressure waves have been used for decades to safely break
up kidney stones and, in 2021,
Intravascular Lithotripsy, or IVL, was approved by the FDA to be used to remove problematic calcium
in a patient’s coronary arteries,” said
Matthew Certain, M.D., board-certified interventional cardiologist,
Southeast Georgia Physician Associates-Cardiology and a member of the Brunswick Campus medical staff. “Performed in
the Cath Lab, IVL allows us to crack the calcium so that the artery can
be safely expanded and a stent implanted to restore blood flow with minimal
trauma to normal arterial tissue. In some cases, it can eliminate the
need for open heart surgery.”
According to the World Health Organization (WHO) cardiovascular diseases
are the leading cause of death globally, taking an estimated 17.9 million
lives each year—more than 600,000 of those deaths are in the United
States. As people with heart disease, specifically coronary artery disease,
grow older and their disease progresses, plaque in the arteries evolves
into calcium deposits, which can narrow the artery. Physicians often use
stents to open an artery, and of the approximately one million patients
that undergo a stent procedure each year, 30% have problematic calcium
that increases their risk for adverse events.
“It’s exciting to be starting a new chapter in the treatment
of heart disease in some of our most complex patient cases, and it certainly
offers new hope to patients with cardiovascular disease,” said Certain.
“The Health System’s leadership team, along with all the providers
and team members, are committed to being our region’s health care
provider of choice. Offering advanced procedures that are proven to improve
patient outcomes is evidence of their dedication to high quality patient
care.”