Radiation challenges heart disease

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- Cardiologists are using radiation to help heart patients to avoid repeat hospitalizations for angioplasty.

"It's quite effective," said Dr. John Douglas of Emory University Medical Center. "It's not perfect, but it has a major impact."

	VIDEO
CNN's Rhonda Rowland reports on a treatment that delivers radiation directly to the heart Play video (QuickTime, Real or Windows Media)

After angioplasty to widen clogged arteries, surgeons commonly use a tiny wire-mesh cylinder called a stent to prop the blood vessels open. But in some 20 percent of cases, scar tissue forms to create a new blockage, a process called restenosis.

"The radiation prevents that by actually killing the cells so there's no cells there to replicate," explained Douglas, an associate professor of medicine. "Consequently, the restenosis process is interrupted."

Radiation doses used in heart patients are much smaller than those used to kill cancer cells. Minute radioactive seeds are implanted into the affected arteries for about five minutes -- long enough to reduce re-narrowing of the stent by an estimated 66 percent, and to reduce narrowing in the artery itself by 36 percent.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved two devices, using beta and gamma radiation for these treatments, which cost about $3,000 each.

CNN Medical Correspondent Rhonda Rowland reports.

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American Heart Association

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