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Mark C P Haigney, MD
Director, Cardiology
USU
Matthew R Jezior, MD
Chief, Cardiology
COL
|
MC
|
USA
WRB
The Cardiology Service at Walter Reed
Bethesda is the pre-eminent clinical and
academic cardiovascular service in the
Department of Defense. In the tradition of
former Army cardiologist Dr. Richard Schatz,
co-creator of the world’s first coronary stent,
military cardiology has long been on the
forefront of cutting-edge therapy. This year
proved to be no exception to such innovation.
This spirit of excellence underscores all that
we do: providing state-of-the-art patient care,
participating in internationally-recognized
research, and serving as a leader in academic
cardiology through superb medical education.
Leading the Way with Leadless Pacemakers
A landmark achievement for Walter Reed
Bethesda in 2016 was the implantation of the
first leadless pace-
maker in the Military
Health System and
in the Washington,
DC area—an effort
spearheaded
by
electrophysiologists
Matthew
Needle-
man and Joseph Lee.
Pacemakers
help
patients with life-
threatening
heart
rhythm
disorders
maintain a steady
heart rate, and require a surgical procedure to
be implanted. For traditional pacemakers, a
battery-operated generator is placed under
the skin of the patient’s chest, and wires are
inserted through major blood vessels and into
the heart.
Wireless pacemakers provide an innovative
alternative. A tiny battery-shaped device is
implanted directly into the heart through a
puncture in the patient’s leg, avoiding the
need for surgery or permanent wires to be left
in the patient’s circulation. As innovators, Drs.
Needleman and Lee saw the tremendous
potential of this exciting new technology.
Minimally-Invasive ICDs Deliver Life-Saving
Defibrillation Therapy
Through
the
innovative
leadership
of
electrophysiologist
Linda
Huffer,
the
Cardiology Service was able to launch an
exciting
new
treatment,
subcutaneous
Implantable Cardioverter-Defibrillators (ICDs).
Similar to pacemakers, ICDs are life-saving
devices that are surgically implanted under a
patient’s skin and deliver defibrillation shocks
to the heart through wires inserted through
the blood vessels. Using sub-cutaneous
electrodes, these novel devices avoid the
need for permanently implanted wires.
Interventional Cardiologists Replace Aortic
Valves without General Anesthesia
The Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement
(TAVR) program grew and matured this past
year. Under the leadership of interventional
cardiologist Eugene Soh, Walter Reed
Bethesda became the first MTF to offer both
commercially available TAVR systems to our
patients. TAVR is a novel therapy that allows
patients with life-threatening aortic valve
stenosis who are at high risk for open heart
surgery to get a new heart valve through a
small incision in the groin.
Car
diolog
y
A multidisciplinary team
from the operating room
staff, anesthesia,
cardiothoracic surgery
and cardiology prepare to
perform a TAVR
procedure.
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Another first for our TAVR program was the
first procedure in the DoD to be performed
without general anesthesia. This innovative
achievement was accomplished in partnership
with Cardiothoracic Anesthesia.
New Patent Ductus Arteriosus Therapy
Gives Hope to Patients with Congenital and
Structural Heart Disease
Dr. Robert Gallagher, a recent graduate of a
structural heart disease and interventional
cardiology
fellowship
at
Massachusetts
General Hospital, is a new addition to our
Cardiology staff. Dr. Gallagher performed
Walter Reed Bethesda’s first transcutaneous
closure of a patent ductus arteriosus, a
congenital condition in which arterial blood is
shunted through a short circuit from the aorta
back to the pulmonary artery circulation. Left
untreated, this condition can lead to
significant morbidity and mortality. Dr.
Gallagher’s innovative skill set and leadership
will allow our beneficiaries to receive cutting-
edge congenital and structural heart disease
therapies within the NCR.
Genomic Sequencing Will Bring the
Promise of Precision Medicine to Patients
with Life-Threating Arrhythmias, Heart
Failure and Aortopathy
Precision medicine refers to the use of genetic
and
molecular
techniques
to
identify
unexpected genetic risks and test therapeutic
strategies in individual patients. Some of our
patients have diseases caused by harmful but
unrecognized variations in their genetic code.
Collaboration among WRB, USU and the
National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute
(NHLBI) is bringing the promise of precision
medicine to the treatment of patients with life
threatening arrhythmias, heart failure and
aortopathy. The American Genome Center at
USU will provide researchers and clinicians
with the entire genomic sequence of Walter
Reed Bethesda patients in order to identify
previously unrecognized vulnerabilities as well
as therapeutic opportunities. These sequences
will be interpreted by Cardiology clinicians, led
by department members Drs. Haigney,
Needleman and Flanagan, as well as members
of WRB Medical Genetics and the Division of
Molecular Pathology.
A major challenge is determining whether a
particular genetic variant actually results in
disease-causing changes in the heart cell. In
the past, a patient would need to undergo a
dangerous heart biopsy to provide such tissue.
Cutting-edge molecular techniques now allow
investigators to transform a patient’s skin cells
into cardiac cells, allowing the evaluation of
cell physiology and its response to drugs.
These cells, called inducible Pluripotent Stem
Cell-derived cardiac myocytes (iPSC-CMs), are
currently developed at NHLBI and studied at
USU and prove that genetic abnormalities
result in pathologic behavior of their
associated proteins. The iPSC-CM therefore
allows the fulfillment of the promise of
precision medicine, giving clinicians the ability
to determine the impact of genetic variants on
heart cell physiology without subjecting the
patient to risky and invasive biopsies.
Dr. Joe Lee, a cardiac
electrophysiologist,
performs an ablation
procedure using state-of-
the-art 3D mapping.