Coronary Thrombosis Still Worst Killer

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29170, 2 April 1960, Page 10

Coronary Thrombosis Still Worst Killer

[By

DOUGLAS COUPAR]

In spite of the tremendous amount of publicity which disease* like cancer and polio have received during the last decade, few realise that they are not the number one killers of the twentieth century. This evil privilege belongs to a disease called coronary thrombosis—a clotting of the blood in the veins-and arteries which supply the heart muscles, leading to heart failure. Thrombosis kills about as many people every year as all the different kinds of cancer put together. Tn Britain the annual toll is around 80,000. In spite of the lack of publicity about it, intensive research has been going on all over the world/into the' causes of thrombosis and its diagnosis, cures and, if possible, prevention. And recent months have brought some significant break-throughs to reward the patience of the researchers. A major difficulty about thrombosis, from the doctor’s point of view, is that it often strikes down people who are apparently in good health. Even recognised methods of detecting thrombosis do not always reveal symptqpis until it is too late. If some method of early diagnosis can be found, or, better still, a way of predicting who is likely to get thrombosis discovered, thousands of lives could be saved by taking precautionary measures before the disease gains a hold on its victim. Initial Success A team of British scientists has now reported initial success with just such a method. Working at St. George’s Hospital, London, the doctors have evolved a method of squirting a special dye, which is opaque to X-rays, into the patient’s heart through a tube inserted info an arm vein. As the dye is shot in. a special X-ray cine camera is set in motion to record what happens. The dye spreads quickly through the coronary blood vessels and their branches, clearly tracing for the camera the size and shape of the passages they pass through. Any ominous narrowing of the blood vessels is shown up on the cine film. The development of this technique promises doctors a clear view of exactly where the trouble is likely to occur in the patient’s heart. Moreover, it will help to diagnose the mysterious cases of pains in the heart, as yet unexplained. Another important piece of work has been carried through its initial stages in Budapest, where Hungarian scientists have been working on the possibility of developing a vaccine which will prevent thrombosis, in just the same way as the polio vaccine is intended to intervene before the disease can get a hold. Using laboratory animals, the Hungarians have first induced in them a disease called atherosclerosis, a degenerative condition of the arteries which often precedes thrombosis. The Hungarians believe that the narrowing of the arteries is caused by a fatty ingredient of the blood known as cholesterol being incorporated into the artery wall, and that the condition is worsened .by another blood ingredient with the forbidding name of beta-lipoprotein. Having induced atherosclerosis in the laboratory animals by feeding them a diet rich in cholesterol, they then extracted from the blood of one group of animals the lipoprotein content and injected it. at regular intervals, into another group. Careful testing showed that the blood of the injected animals developed antibodies, organisms which resisted other organisms. Next step was to place the injected animals on the same high-cholesterol diet which had produced atherosclerosis in the earlier experimental groups, and another group of animals which had not received the lipoprotein

injections was also placed I jv the diet. After several weeks the n ■ mals were painlessly killed, fl the scientists were able to a amine their blood vessels. 1 f the group which had recefri p the injections, the arteries show no change from normal But I I; the group which had not i » ceived the lipoprotein there • sa marked narrowing of fl w arteries in every case. These results do not mean th It a vaccine against throenboH fl which could safely be used t »■ human patients, is imminent B $ they do mark an importane mfl *. stone in that direction—the w ■ of milestone which, one day, i w may look back on as just I | Important as the initial succefl f of Dr. Jonas SalkMeanwhile, the fight to w f the lives of those who have I ready contracted thromta continues. American heart * cialists have reported encoun ing results in the treatment i thrombosis without surge! using powerful X-rays. The technique involvea irffl K ating the heart muscles thiofl the chest wall with the nj from a radioactive machine. Again the scientists us laboratory animals in 'whi • heart disease had delibertfl B been induced. Half the anioi | were given the radiation tred ment, while the other half n mained untreated. Only 10 per cent, of the J treated animals survived. B >■ 50 per cent of the treated B mals lived, and examination I I their hearts revealed that 8 i small blood vessels had incretf in both number and size, tan over from the block corona: artery the job of nourishing n rheart muscles. There were J F ill effects from the radiatk® i ' self. * The experiments have beeni t successful that doctors have » j ready started testing the. t» nique with human patients. < method of treating at leart thrombosis cases without surly may be just around the «r»J It—(Central Press. All Right* • “ served)