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Biotech / Medical : IMAT - ultrafast tomography for coronary artery disease -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: stock bull who wrote (2700)	9/7/1998 6:22:00 PM
From: Brian Moloney	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 3725

I think that I have talked about this before. There are excellent monkey studies (I believe rhesus) that show reversal of coronary disease with lowering of cholesterol. Of course these monkeys were artificially fed high fat diets to provoke the atherosclerosis in the first place. It is possible then that the resulta might not be applicable to humans. The human studies are not prospective (that is they have not deliberately caused atherosclerosis in humans, but there is a lot of evidence that lowering cholesterol can cause reversal of lesions. Usually it is the LDL that is the benchmark and the goal is to get it less than 100 for sure, perhaps less than 90. The problem with the studies so far has been availability of subjects. One would have had to have a cath at "baseline", decrease the LDL, and then have another cath later. Not a lot of people like to have "unnecessary" caths and there are lots of problems with the "control" group. One of the big reasons that the National Heart-Lung Institute is putting up $60 million plus to study EBCT is to look for a non-invasive way to quantitate reversal of disease after manipulation of risk factors. I hope this helps.

To: stock bull who wrote (2700)	9/7/1998 8:58:00 PM
From: Steven Durrington	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3725

Stockbull, Coronary Artery Disease (CAD) is a somewhat inevitable process which occurs in all of us to one degree or another. It is a significant cause of morbidity and mortality, and accounts for about 50% of all adult deaths. There are factors which are unavoidable and those which can be minimized. If you reduce or eliminate the avoidable factors, you may significantly slow down the progress of CAD, depending on the effects of the irreversible factors. Unavoidable contributors to CAD include :- * Age * Sex (males have a higher risk than females) * Family History * Diseases (e.g. Diabetes, Uncontrolled Hypertension) Avoidable risk factors include :- * Smoking * Obesity * High blood pressure * Stress * High fat diet/high cholesterol levels * Lack of exercise It is possible in some cases to reverse the effects of CAD, but usually in the early stages rather than in the later stages. Late stage disease is self perpetuating, whereby blood flow turbulence and higher blood pressures in the diseased vessels exacerbate injury and worsens the state of the arteries. This is definitely a case of prevention is much better than cure. This is why IMAT's high speed CT and PET scanning technology have such important implications in the diagnosis and early treatment of coronary artery disease. Good luck with your personal health. I am pleased to see you diagnosed early and taking steps to improve your quality and quantity of life. I am actually on vacation back home in Australia, and after today, won't have access to Internet. I'll talk to you in 3 weeks, when I am back in Saudi Arabia and back on-line. Kind Regards, Durro