Virtua Is 1st In South Jersey To Use Life-Saving Heart Procedure

A new surgery being conducted at Virtua Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital opens clogged arteries that are especially difficult to unclog to unblock due to hard calcium deposits or twists in the arteries, according to hospital officials.

The life-saving procedure known as Shockwave intravascular lithotripsy is based on the same technology used to destroy kidney stones, so they can more easily pass through the urinary tract, and was recently used to save a 51-year-old man on dialysis for chronic kidney failure, officials said.

“Calcium is like kryptonite when it comes to performing a coronary intervention,” Virtua interventional cardiologist Dr. John Finley IV said. “It’s literally and figuratively hard and tough, making for extremely difficult stent delivery, and then once in position, even more difficult to properly expand the stent.”

The patient, who was not named by Virtua, has been the victim of a series of heart attacks, according to the health system. He had undergone several cardiac procedures, including bypass surgery, and was not a candidate for additional open-heart surgery, according to officials. He was at high risk for traditional atherectomy, which uses a miniature diamond-tipped drill threaded through a catheter to break through the calcium.

Finley said he felt Shockwave was the best and safest option. The minimally invasive procedure received U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval in late February, officials said. It uses a wave of sonic pressure to fracture calcium buildup in a blood vessel and allow for the use of a stent – a mesh tube that holds the artery open.

Virtua’s cardiac specialists had already used a version of Shockwave to treat peripheral artery disease and to open the femoral/iliac arteries in preparation for transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR).

“In a patient with tortuous arteries, meaning there are a lot of twists and turns, you run a higher risk of perforating or tearing the artery if you use traditional forms of atherectomy,” Finley said. “This was the ideal case for Shockwave intravascular lithotripsy.”

During the procedure, the doctor threads a catheter through the femoral or radial artery to the location of the blockage, where it inflates a special balloon, Finley said.

An electrical discharge from emitters on the catheter vaporizes the fluid within the balloon, creating a rapidly expanding and collapsing bubble that generates sonic pressure waves.

Those waves pass through soft tissue and create micro-fractures in the calcium inside the vessel and embedded within its walls. After the calcium is cracked, a balloon fully expands the vessel and a drug-eluting stent is safely implanted to improve blood flow.

The procedure, which took about an hour, was successful, officials said. The patient stayed overnight in the hospital before going home. Health officials said he is now home, and has seen marked improvement in his chest pain symptoms.

“The Shockwave complements our other approaches to treating coronary blockages,” Finley said. “It is an exciting tool to have available for our patients.”