Quebec device, Quebec first in unblocking arteries
Three months ago, Marc Daniel R’bibo could barely walk inside his apartment in Snowdon, and his chest often throbbed with pain.
The 74-year-old retired fashion entrepreneur had been suffering from heart disease for years, with some of his coronary arteries blocked completely.
“My energy levels were terrible. I had no vitality,” R’bibo recalled.
But all that changed soon after he underwent an angioplasty on June 22 at the McGill University Health Centre. R’bibo made medical history as the first patient in the world to have his arteries cleared by an interventional cardiologist who used a revolutionary new guide-wire instrument that was pioneered by a medical-devices company in the Eastern Townships.
The company, SoundBite, chose the MUHC as the first site to test the technology, which has the potential to boost success rates in clearing totally clogged coronary arteries while reducing the number of complications. Dr. Stéphane Rinfret, chief of interventional cardiology at the MUHC, performed the angioplasty on R’bibo using the new guide wire.
“Today, my chest pain has disappeared,” R’bibo said on Wednesday. “I can walk. I cannot run yet, but I will.”
“Dr. Rinfret is master of his profession,” he added. “The whole team at the hospital was absolutely great and I’m very grateful to them.”
What’s unique about the guide wire is that it acts like a miniature jackhammer, sending shock waves to pierce through the calcium-clogged arteries. The guide wire, which is a third of a millimetre thick, is inserted through a vein in the wrist or leg to reach the blocked artery of the heart.
“This wire could mean the difference between the success and failure of a CTO angioplasty because it will be able to break through areas where other guides fail to penetrate,” Rinfret explained, alluding to the medical condition known as a chronic total occlusion (CTO).
About 20 per cent of coronary artery patients suffer from CTOs, and most end up undergoing bypass surgery. Across Canada, they number in the thousands. At the MUHC, half of CTO patients have already undergone bypass surgery, and they are generally not good candidates for more bypass operations. For such patients, the solution is the angioplasty, and the new guide wire holds the promise to achieve better results.
The SoundBite Active Wire will be tested as part of a two-year study during which 150 patients will be recruited across Canada and the United States.
To date, Rinfret and his team have used the guide wire on three patients and plan to operate on a fourth in October.
“We’re privileged and proud to have been selected by the company that is based in Sherbrooke,” Rinfret said. “They came to us here because they knew that we could be in a better position to engage in the dialogue you need to have with engineers.”
SoundBite has already incorporated some of Rinfret’s suggestions for the next-generation guide wire. Rinfret noted that some interventional cardiologists struggle with relatively low success rates in performing CTO angioplasties using conventional technology.
The hope is that with the new guide wire, the success rates might rise as high as 90 per cent.
As he reflected on his angioplasty three months ago, R’bibo said he wasn’t worried to undergo the procedure using the new technology.
“If it wasn’t for Dr. Rinfret and his team,” R’bibo added, “I believe I’d be in heaven by now.”