CLINICAL NOTES

Methodist Breast Center

has been awarded a three-year term of accreditation in stereotactic breast biopsy imaging services by the American College of Radiology (ACR).

After a peer review process, the ACR, headquartered in Reston, VA, awards accreditation to facilities that exhibit high practice standards. ACR is a national organization serving more than 32,000 diagnostic interventional radiologists, radiation oncologists, and nuclear medicine and medical physicists with programs focusing on the practice of medical imaging and radiation oncology, and the delivery of comprehensive health care services.

The Methodist Hospital recently joined

Houston Grand Opera’s (HGO) family of supporters as the “Official Health Care Provider to Houston Grand Opera.” The five-year partnership provides HGO’s local and visiting artists with full access to Methodist physicians, nurses and staff who specialize in treating professional singers and musicians.

The HGO partnership makes Methodist the official health care provider of three of Houston’s leading performing arts organizations — Houston Ballet, Houston Symphony Orchestra and the Houston Grand Opera.

CLINICAL NOTES

DR. DAVID BROWN, ophthalmologist and retina specialist at The Methodist Hospital, served as local principal investigator in a multicenter study that recently determined that traditional laser treatment is more effective than corticosteroid treatment in the preservation of eyesight in diabetic patients with diabetic macular edema (DME). The study, funded by the NIH’s National Eye Institute and conducted through the Diabetic Retinopathy Clinical Research Network, demonstrated that laser therapy is not only more effective than drug therapy, but it also has far fewer side effects. Nearly 700 patients with DME participated in the randomized study at 88 sites across the United States.

In the corticosteroid-treated group, 28 percent experienced substantial vision loss as compared to 19 percent in the laser-treated group. In addition, about one-third of the patients treated with laser therapy showed substantial improvement in vision.

PHYSICIANS AT THE METHODIST DEBAKEY HEART & VASCULAR CENTER now close certain types of leaky heart valves through a tiny puncture in the groin, using live 3D imaging for precise guidance. Methodist offers this combination treatment as an alternative to open heart surgery. Cardiologists NEAL KLEIMAN, SASHI GUTHIKONDA and STEPHEN LITTLE recently used an image-guided catheter to close a leak surrounding a 65-year-old patient’s mitral valve, rather than exposing her to a potential fourth open heart surgery. The leak was causing such damage to her blood that she was constantly weak and needed multiple blood transfusions. The minimally invasive technique, called percutaneous paravalvular leak repair, is performed in a catheterization lab rather than in an operating room.

DR. MIGUEL VALDERRABANO, cardiologist at the Methodist DeBakey Heart & Vascular Center, recently was the first in Houston to use a robotic catheter to treat irregular heart rhythms (arrhythmias). More than 2.5 million Americans have arrhythmias, which cause problems such as strokes. These catheter-based procedures are typically done manually. By using the robot, cardiologists have more control when reaching pinpoint places in the heart that cause the disease. Valderrabano is chief of the Division of Cardiac Electrophysiology at The Methodist Hospital.