Baptist Princeton, Birmingham, is the first site in the nation to administer a new genetic medicine in a clinical trial, designed to regenerate blood vessels in patients with peripheral artery disease (PAD). PAD is severely reduced blood flow in the legs and lower extremities caused by blocked arteries.
Baptist Princeton physician Dr. Farrell Mendelsohn is the principal investigator in this study. Mendelsohn, a cardiologist, takes a comprehensive approach to cardiovascular disease and focuses equally on the heart and the rest of the body’s circulation.
The medicine being used in the clinical trial is called HGF, or hepatocyte growth factor, and is being administered to patients who have blocked peripheral arteries in the legs and lower extremities.
Currently, there are no medications available that are likely to develop new blood vessels. They are still experimental and undergoing clinical trials. Surgery and balloon angioplasty are the current treatment modalities for patients with peripheral artery disease.
About 100 patients will be followed through this treatment at Baptist Princeton for the next several months.
“Gene therapy is a new approach to treating disease,” Mendelsohn said. “The results of this study will provide valuable information on whether HGF plasmid can benefit future patients with severe peripheral artery disease.”
Opened in 1922, Baptist Princeton is the flagship hospital of the Baptist Health System. Today, Baptist Princeton is a full-service tertiary hospital with some 1,400 employees providing a wide range of services including such specialties as neurosurgery, obstetrics, orthopedics, pulmonary medicine, cardiac services and cardiac surgery.
(BHS)
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