MRHC cardiologist offers new heart procedure

Oct. 09--A local cardiologist is bringing a new service to heart attack and high-risk patients in the area.

Dr. Marvin Padnick, a cardiologist at McAlester Regional Health Center, recently completed the first successful Impella heart pump procedure at the hospital in a step toward improving cardiac care.

"It allows us now at this hospital to do more complex cases like we did this week, instead of having to transfer to another hospital," Padnick said of the procedure.

"And more importantly, if a patient comes in with cardiogenic shock, we can go ahead and treat them right here," he added. "Time is muscle when it comes to heart attacks."

Hospitals across the nation use 90 minutes door-to-balloon time -- a term used to mark the time when a patient enters a hospital to the procedure -- as the standard.

Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows around 610,000 Americans die of heart disease every year and about 735,000 suffer a heart attack every year. Oklahoma also ranked second in heart disease death rate in 2016, according to the CDC.

MRHC now offers an Impella left ventricular assist device that continues blood flow out of the heart during procedures to improve local care.

The FDA-approved device is used for high-risk percutaneous coronary intervention, cardiogenic shock after a heart attack or open heart surgery. Padnick said the device is placed in an artery in the groin and advanced up into the heart.

"It has a motor drive unit that then puts the blood flow from the ventricle inside the heart out to the aorta and keeps the blood flow going while we're working on the heart to try to save the heart muscle," Padnick said.

Padnick, who started at MRHC in June, earned a dental surgery degree from State University in New York in 1970, and earned his medical degree from Chicago'sRush Medical College in 1973. He was an intern and assistant resident in 1975 and a senior resident in 1976 at Cornell University.

He trained as director of the heart program at Banner University Good Samaritan Hospital in Pheonix, Arizona, where he became an innovator in cardiology in 1980.

Padnick said he visited Andreas

Greuntzig in Zurich, Switzerland regarding a balloon-type device for heart procedures and brought the device back to use on five patients.

"I went to the chief of cardiology at the hospital at that time and he said 'you can't put a balloon in somebody,'" Padnick recalled.

After Padnick told the chief at the time that he vouched for the procedure he agreed to allow it -- but said "if anything happens, you'll never practice again in Arizona."

"I was hoping for a little more support," Padnick said with a chuckle. "But we went ahead, we did it, and believe it or not, we used that same balloon for the first five patients that we had."

Padnick said patients suffering large heart attacks with low blood pressure have a lot of heart muscle at risk because of the occluded artery.

He said patients considered high-risk have multiple vessels that need work and contribute to weak heart muscle.

If the artery should close during the procedure, Padnick said the left ventricular assist device can help save the patient from "an extremely serious situation."

The heart can pump five to seven liters of blood per minute and Padnick said the device can pump 2.5 liters per minute

"So you can see how it'll continue the work of the heart if the heart muscles should undergo some damage from a heart attack or during a procedure and keep perfusing the brain and the kidneys," Padnick said.

Some symptoms of a heart attack include chest pain, nausea, indigestion, heartburn, stomach pain and more.

Padnick said educating people on signs and symptoms of a possible heart attack is important at all ages.

"And that becomes very relevant in patients who are above 50 years, are diabetic, are smokers, have family history of heart disease, or who have high cholesterol," Padnick said.

Contact Adrian O'Hanlon III aohanlon@mcalesternews.com

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