New technique uses heart attacks to heal

Though a heart attack can damage the heart - sometimes severely - an unusual procedure now in use at CoxHealth helps heart patients by causing small heart attacks by injecting alcohol into the organ.

According to an Oct. 14 news release from CoxHealth, the treatment, known as septal ablation, was recently used by the health system for the first time. The procedure is a nonsurgical option for patients who suffer from hypertropic cardiomyopathy, a condition that causes abnormal thickening of the heart muscle.

The condition, which is inherited, limits blood flow from the left side of the heart to the aorta, the heart's main vessel. Symptoms include chest pain, fainting and shortness of breath.

Alcohol septal ablation was first performed in Britain in 1994.

Dr. Steven Rowe, an interventional cardiologist with Ferrell-Duncan Clinic, recently performed CoxHealth's first septal ablation on Glen Blankenship, of Mansfield.

Blankenship suffered from shortness of breath and weakness, and an echocardiogram confirmed hypertropic cardiomyopathy.

Patients are sedated during the procedure. A catheter is inserted through a small incision in the groin, and a temporary pacemaker is put into the heart. Alcohol is injected into the heart via catheter, causing a small heart attack.

"The thickened heart muscle is replaced with thin scar tissue, allowing blood to flow much easier than before," Rowe said in the release.

Blankenship said he noticed an improvement just days after the procedure.

"Now, I am able to mow the yard, fix the fence and chop wood, tasks I struggled with before," he said.

See SBJ's Oct. 20 issue for more health care news in In Focus: Salute to Health Care.