Tiny magnetic beads to unblock your arteries

Tiny magnetic beads that move through the blood and ‘ dr il l ’ through blocked arteries could be a new treatment for heart disease. Arteries become clogged when cholesterol, calcium and other substances accumulate on their inner walls — a process called atherosclerosis. As they narrow, the flow of oxygen-rich blood is reduced, increasing the risk of heart attack or stroke.

Current treatments include performing an angioplasty — where a balloon is inflated to open up a narrowed or blocked artery. if this doesn’t work it is followed by implanting a metal mesh tube (a stent) to keep the artery open.

However, sometimes scar tissue builds up as a result of these treatments and the artery narrows again.

newer stents that release medicine — known as drug-eluting stents — can stop this scarring. The advantage of using the new magnetic beads is that they appear to be harmless to the body and are unlikely to cause the same scarring reaction. Similar particles are already routinely used in magnetic Resonance imaging (mRi) scans to help with imaging.

The metal balls, each one smaller than a speck of dust, are formed into a chain three to four beads long, and held together with a chemical bond.

The beads are made from iron oxide and are inserted into the femoral artery in the groin on the end of a long tube, a catheter, which is fed up through the body to the blockage.

The beads are then exposed to a magnetic field generated by a machine that is similar to mRi scanners (widely used to detect diseases such as cancer), only smaller. once released through the catheter, the magnetic force makes the beads rotate like a corkscrew, and propels them through the bloodstream towards the blockage.

As they come into contact with the blockage, the beads continue turning with force, drilling a hole straight through it, which means blood can flow again.

The beads come in different sizes and their rotation can be reversed so they can go back and f or t h t hrough t he blockage until it’s totally cleared and normal blood flow is restored. As a result, the risk of a heart attack or stroke is immediately reduced, too.

The unblocked deposits and the beads are then flushed through the kidneys as waste and excreted in the urine. The entire procedure lasts roughly an hour, similar to existing treatments.

So far the beads, being developed by the Daegu Gyeongbuk institute in South Korea and Drexel University in Philadelphia, have only been tested

on animals. But they could be in clinical trials within the next four to five years, the researchers said.

Scientists are also looking at loading the beads with anticoagulant medication. over a few months, the drug would be released to thin the blood as it flows past the site of the CommenTinG blockage to reduce the risk of clotting and blockages further.

on the new te c hnology, Dr nick Palmer, an interventional cardiologist at Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital, said it could be used in some cases as an alternative to existing techniques but is unlikely to replace them completely. ‘ it i s difficult to imagine the beads can erode often hard, calcified atherosclerosis.

‘Blockages are often very long — 30mm or more — and it is unclear whether the beads differentiate atherosclerosis from the normal tissues that form the arterial wall.

‘in other words, can they can be directed along an often tortuous blocked artery? it may in the future have a role, but we will likely always need devices such as stents.’

meAnWHiLe, the U.S. medicines watchdog the food and Drug Administration ( fDA) has strengthened its warning that certain painkillers can increase the risk of heart attack and stroke.

After reviewing recent reports of side- effects from nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs such as ibuprofen and naproxen, it has updated its 2005 advice, which said that long-term use is linked to a higher risk of heart attack and strokes.

now it says there’s not enough data to show they are safe to use as widely as they are, and even shortterm use could increase the risk. Use of aspirin, however, is not covered by this new warning.