Nation IN BRIEF : GEORGIA : New Tool Scours Clogged Arteries
A tiny diamond-tipped cutting tool spinning 200,000 times per minute successfully tunneled through deposits clogging arteries in 95% of 315 patients tested, scientists reported. “It has been an exceedingly useful device to treat blood vessels in a different way,” said Dr. Maurice Buchbinder, a cardiologist at the University of California, San Diego. Side effects were minimal, Buchbinder said in a report at the annual meeting of the American College of Cardiology in Atlanta. Dr. William Untereker of the Philadelphia Heart Institute, an authority on the use of lasers to open blocked arteries, said it is too soon to know how the device will compare with lasers or other devices used to clean arteries.
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