MHB angiopathy researchers develop ‘dynamite’ for arteries

Brandenburg an der Havel, 7 December 2018

Ivo Buschmann (MHB professor of angiology and director of the university angiology clinic at the Brandenburg Municipal Hospital) and his team of researchers have published a highly noted study in PLUS ONE, an international journal of renown. Physicians and researchers documented that nitric oxide, a molecule chemically related to explosives, helps to improve heart blood circulation by stimulating the growth of biological bypasses.

The team headed by Prof. Ivo Buschmann, Dr. Philipp Hillmeister and Dr. Nora Gatzke managed to show that therapeutic administration of the NO molecule has an immediate influence on biological bypasses. Buschmann on the relevance of findings from the study: “Nitric oxide is produced in different parts of the human body. Diseases of the coronary arteries frequently interfere with the synthesis of this molecule. Conversely, arteries pre-treated with this substance grow faster and can therefore mitigate the sometimes fatal effects of insufficient supply in case of infarction. Not only is NO dynamite for arteries; our findings are indeed dynamite for future studies, particularly with reference to ‘window shopper’s syndrome’ or intermittent claudication and other vascular disorders.”

Buschmann: “The so called window shopper’s syndrome involves limitation of walking distances. Leg pains force affected patients to stop intermittently, thus the name of the illness. It is conceivable that the combination of a therapeutic administration of nitric oxide with novel treatments such as the Herzhose, i.e. leg cuffs we designed for heart patients, results in a new therapy approach to address vascular diseases. We plan to further explore the described effects in future studies at the MHB and the German Angiology Center Brandenburg (www.dazb.de). Interested patients may, e.g., register for the Brandenburg health study where they can have artery performance tested on a treadmill in the movement laboratory.”

Interested patients may contact Prof. Buschmann via phone (03381 41-1550) or email (ivo.buschmann@mhb-fontane.de).