radiation/restenosis

[Chuck Pickering <cpickeri@USC.EDU>]

Mike is correct. Radiation has been shown to be effective in reducing 

restenosis where all other interventions except stents have failed. Mike is 

also correct that we don't know the long-term effects of this treatment. 

One reason is that not enough animal studies have been performed to look at 

the long-term effects. One problem is that even though pig hearts are very 

similar to humans, pig arteries are not. Keep in mind we still don't fully 

understand what the radiation is doing and what dose is being delivered 

where in the very complex human artery that is bringing this about. It is 

likely that the radiation is doing both good and bad here. If we could 

figure out the correct dose needed to be delivered to the correct "tissue" 

we could do a better job of reducing the potentially long-term harmful effects.



Chuck Pickering, RSO

University of Southern California 



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