Researchers are using a new grant to focus on the threat from fatty plaque buildup in arteries to the health of their patients.
Some cardiologists who formerly believed that clogging of arteries was the leading culprit in heart attacks are now re-evaluating their approach to the disease. They believe that up to 70 percent of attacks are caused by so-called vulnerable plaque in otherwise healthy individuals.
"This has been a recent change of thinking," said Dr. James T. Willerson, cardiologist and president of the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston.
Researchers at UT Houston and several other institutions have received a $15.5 million, four-year grant from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute to study why the plaques proliferate and burst in some people but not others.
One patient, 67-year-old William Alexander, was a victim of pockets of fatty plaque scattered throughout his arteries. None of the plaque had accumulated enough to substantially narrow his arteries, the precursor to a conventional heart attack, but Alexander's doctors were concerned because of a changing understanding view of how many heart attacks may work.
"They told me I had walked right up to the edge of the cliff," Alexander told the Houston Chronicle in Tuesday's editions. "My toes were already slipping over the edge."
His doctors were concerned that, instead of the sludgelike plaque gradually building up and eventually blocking an artery, a plaque pockets even in an artery thought to be healthy could burst and cause a potentially fatal blockage almost immediately.
The physicians now believe just 30 percent of heart attacks are caused by narrowing arteries.
New goals include finding a better way to identify the majority of those at risk and to develop better treatments.
"Everything is too new right now," said Eric Boerwinkle, lead investigator and director of UT-Houston's Human Genetics Center. "There just isn't data yet. That's why this project is so important."
