00.00 Ws
Medical School, University of Birmingham
Dr Frenneaux and asst at ultrasound
CU Dr Frenneaux / asst / heart on screen
Perhexiline box / pills tipped out / pills
Guide Voice: A team of researchers at the
University of Birmingham’s Medical School has just published
the results of a project that may transform the treatment of
chronic heart conditions in the future. They tested a drug called
Perhexiline, and proved that it can markedly increase the
functional efficiency of the hearts of cardiac failure
patients.
Cardiac failure is now the most common cause of acute admissions
to hospital for the over 65s, and with 113,000 deaths annually from
Coronary Heart Disease, it is the most common cause of premature
death in the UK.
In this latest discovery funded by the British Heart Foundation,
a team of researchers led by Professor Michael Frenneaux tested the
drug Perhexiline, formerly an angina treatment, on 56 patients with
heart failure.
00.45 SOT Michael Fenneaux , Professor of Cardiology,
Dept of Cardiovascular Medicine, University of Birmingham Medical
School - "Well Perhexiline’s an old drug
which used to be used for another purpose but it’s only
recently that we’ve understood how the drug worked and we now
know that what it does is causes the heart to change the fuel that
it burns and it changes it from fats to sugars and that’s
more efficient for the heart so we reasoned that it might be
helpful in heart failure so what we did was we took patients with
heart failure who are on the best current treatment and then we
randomised them to either received this drug treatment or a dummy
tablet a placebo.”
01.20 CU
mask and patient on treadmill
Feet
on treadmill
Tilt
up to mask
Guide Voice: There were three major measures
used in the study. The first, more familiar to a sports lab, used a
metabolic gas cart to measure the amount of oxygen consumed or Vo2
MAX. A patient with heart failure would have a much more restricted
ability to pump blood than a fit and healthy person:
01.37 Rebecca Weaver SOT - "The
majority of heart failure patients will peak at a Vo2 around here,
whereas for a healthy individual fit individual their vo2 will
continue up and of the graph."
01.50 Over
shoulder heart monitor screen
CU
screen
Patient
rolls over for heart scan
Scanner
on torso
02.05 Heart
scan healthy, heart scan damaged heart
Sequence
heart ultrasound scans
Controls
monitor screen
Guide Voice: Their findings showed that there
was a substantial improvement in the patients treated with
Perhexiline. Then through using ultrasound scanning they measured
marked increases of around 10% in the ejection fraction of the
heart- its ability to squeeze. Here again scans of a healthy heart
compared with an unhealthy one reveal how severe and debilitating
the impact of heart failure is. Thirdly through a standardised
questionnaire they discovered that the patients on Perhexiline
reported an improved quality of life, so in all three tests the
drug proved to have marked benefits.
02.25 SOT Professor Michael Fenneaux
-“Well the magnitude of the benefit is really
quite extraordinary. But this was a small study – just over
60 patients and the next stage has to be to try to do a large
study, perhaps 2000 patients looking not just at these measurements
but also does it reduce the frequency of hospital admission, does
it make patients live longer and that’s what we’re in
the process of trying to negotiate but such a trial is very
expensive.”
02.51 Exts
Medical School
Bob
Arnott walks to desk
Unfolds
pressed foxglove cu Digitalis
Ws
William Withering portrait
CU
Foxgloves in portrait
Guide Voice: This latest discovery is part of a
proud tradition of pioneering research into cardiac failure at the
University of Birmingham’s Medical School, which celebrated
its 180th anniversary on the first of December.
It’s a tradition that began with the discovery that an
extract of the common foxglove had an impact on the heart’s
performance and Digitalis is still in use today.
03.13 SOT Bob Arnott, Director, Centre for Medical
History, University of Birmingham -“We have a
significant history and reputation for our work in cardiology. It
started with William Withering at the end of the 18th
century, he was a Birmingham doctor he discovered and developed the
connection between digitalis and heart disease and of course that
set the standard of research in the medical school for a number of
decades“
03.37 Archive
Heart & Lung machine
Pan
heart machine
CU
pacemaker, pacemaker views
CU
Lucas pacemaker booklet
Guide Voice: In the 1950s the medical school
developed the first British heart and lung machine, which allowed
surgery inside the heart for the first time, and went on to develop
and insert the first pacemaker here in Birmingham The work was so
cutting edge that Dr Leon Abrams, the surgeon working on the
pacemaker, recognised he needed expertise from other disciplines,
and begged for assistance from Lucas, the leading engineering firm
in the area.
04.02 SOT Dr Leon Abrams, Pacemaker Pioneer
-“We realized that we needed some more
electronic help so we rang them up and the telephone girl put me
through to a voice that ‘Garner Joseph Lucas here’ and
I said I wanted some electronic help, he said ‘this afternoon
or tomorrow morning?’ and I said tomorrow and he said
he’d send a man round. What I didn’t know was that the
telephone operator had put me through to the vice-president of the
organization.”
04.32 Archive
pacemaker
CU
pacemaker
Portrait
W.Withering
CU
Foxgloves
Guide Voice: The pacemaker they developed
together was highly effective, and became the model for many more,
and this history of pioneering treatments for Cardiac failure
continues to this day.
ENDS 04.44
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