AT THE HOSPITAL..."Cool" Laser Heart Surgery

Nobody thinks it's "cool" to have a heart operation, but thanks to NASA technology a "cool" laser is providing thousands of patients with an alternative to heart bypass surgery.

It is estimated that some five million Americans suffer from "hardening of the arteries" (atherosclerosis), the single biggest cause of heart disease and related ailments. Until recently, heart bypass surgery, which replaces clogged blood vessels, was the main treatment for serious cases.

A non-surgical alternative to some patients is balloon angioplasty. Through this procedure, a flexible catheter with a tiny balloon at its tip is threaded into the blocked artery and inflated to widen the path for blood flow.

In January, 1992, the Food and Drug Administration approved a new surgery method derived from laser technology pioneered by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory for remote sensing of earth's ozone layer. This laser surgery can help a broader range of patients than balloon angioplasty.

The procedure involves threading a small catheter through coronary arteries. The laser light is carried through fiber optic bundles within the catheter. Another group of fibers shines a light at the tip to provide video pictures of the inside of the artery. Watching the video pictures, the doctor can spot areas of blockage and fire short bursts of laser beams to vaporize them. While other types of lasers are too hot for delicate heart surgery, the excimer laser operates at a "cool" 65° C, a temperature that human tissue can tolerate.