LECOM Health has completed a first-of-its-kind vascular procedure in Western Pennsylvania. An Erie patient is now recovering<\/p>\n
Inside LECOM\u2019s cardiac cath lab, doctors used a new SeisMIQ device, and for one Erie patient, it could mean avoiding more serious complications.<\/p>\n
“Is it able to go up into the artery and get right up against that calcium? It\u2019s so difficult to expand or balloon, as we say. And then with the device, it sends energy out into the wall of the artery, kind of fracturing that calcium \u2014 making it more able so when the balloon comes in to expand. Think of a big boulder \u2014 if you were able to shock it and put little cracks all around the boulder, when you finally hit it with the sledgehammer, the whole thing kind of crumbles,” Dr. Matthew Becker, M.D., interventional cardiologist, explained.<\/p>\n
The patient came in with severe peripheral arterial disease \u2014 a blockage in the femoral artery so calcified it was almost like stone. Blood flow to the foot was poor, and wounds were already forming on the great toe.<\/p>\n
Dr. Becker says this technology could help many more patients with severe calcium disease in the legs \u2014 a group that has faced higher risks.<\/p>\n
“Over half of people that go through an amputation are dead in two years, so that\u2019s actually a worse prognosis than many cancers. It\u2019s really important that we are successful at getting these arteries open. The reason we really want to try and do this without a major surgery is obviously patient comfort \u2014 reduced risk to the patient \u2014 and recovery time is better.”<\/p>\n
The entire procedure took less than an hour. With blood flow restored, doctors expect quick healing and recovery.<\/p>\n
“It really has finally undergone the complete study process to show it\u2019s safe and effective, so I wanted to bring it into the lab and into the hands of Western Pennsylvania so that we are able to give patients the absolute best care.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LECOM Health has completed a first-of-its-kind vascular procedure in Western Pennsylvania. An Erie patient is now recovering Inside…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":212560,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[136,138,137,93173,93175,93177,93176,93174],"class_list":["post-212559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-erie","tag-erie","tag-erie-headlines","tag-erie-news","tag-lecom-health","tag-peripheral-arterial-disease","tag-seismiq","tag-shockwave-device","tag-vascular-procedure"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=212559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212559\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/212560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=212559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=212559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=212559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}