Cardiac research centre holds promise for patients

by JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICH, Jerusalem Post
Researchers at Sheba Medical Center’s new Tamman Cardiovascular Research Center expect that in another two or three years, heart patients will benefit from their discoveries, among them the production of adult stem cells from a small amount of adipose (fat) tissue around the heart, to produce hormones that repair damaged hearts.
The center was donated by the children of Gabi and Lina Tamman, Jews of Egyptian origin who are in real estate in Geneva. Five generations of Tammans were present at the dedication ceremony at Sheba of the research center, on the spacious top floor of the new Leviev Heart Center.
The multimillion-dollar at Tel Hashomer research facility, which includes state-ofthe-art labs and is apparently the only one in the country to focus on cardiovascular research, is staffed by 20 physicians, scientists, investigators, students and assistants.
Sheba director-general Prof. Ze’ev Rotstein, who attended the ceremony with heart institute director Prof. Micha Eldar and Tamman Center director Prof. Jonathan Leor, said that management decided on the unique project a few years ago and “finally it has been implemented in a breathtaking way. It is the diamond in the crown.”
Solomon Tamman, the couple’s son, said that all the family members were called on to help in the project. “We are here, five generations of us, to see from close up the wonderful work going on in this leading center. A strong Israel is the source of power and hope for all Jews in the world.”
Leor told The Jerusalem Post that the research will eventually benefit not only older people with heart disease but also young people with congenital heart defects, as well as victims of other diseases. “Basic genetic, molecular and other research on unexplained findings in hospital patients will lead to better treatments,” he said.
Among the methods and subjects besides the use of stem cells that are being developed are engineering of cardiac tissues, study of the genetics of cardiovascular diseases, angiogenesis (growth of new blood vessels) and work on irregular heartbeats at the cellular level. “There is potential for treating peripheral vascular diseases, atherosclerosis, ischemia, cardiomyopathies, congenital defects and other diseases,” he said.
Cardiac research has been carried out in other Sheba facilities for two decades and more, but the additional space and equipment, as well as more students will make it possible to boost that considerably, Leor added. The center has cooperation agreements with other Israeli institutes and with foreign ones in places like Harvard University, the University of Virginia, New York University and the University of Southern California, as well as others in Europe, he said.



Heart-lung machine saves Beduin newborn

by JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICH, Jerusalem Post

A three-week-old Beduin baby who would likely have been aborted if his mother had undergone an ultrasound scan during pregnancy has been saved from a congenital defect with sophisticated treatment, that included days of being connected to a $200,000 device at Sheba Medical Center’s Edward and Lily Safra Children’s Hospital.
The first son of Rahat residents Rasha and Shadi Elkranawi, themselves barely out of their teens, was born at 2.6 kilos in Rasha’s ninth month at Soroka University Medical Center in Beersheba. His condition immediately turned critical, as doctors diagnosed a diaphramatic hernia, in which the intestines move up into the chest cavity and put pressure on the lungs. Soroka lacked the special equipment needed to keep him breathing and his heart beating after an operation.
Although doctors didn’t know if the baby would survive the transfer to Sheba at Tel Hashomer, they nonetheless sent him there and hasty arrangements were made for him with Prof. Gideon Paret, head of the medical center’s pediatric intensive care department.
Four expert staffers—some of them on vacation in other parts of the country—were urgently called to the department to perform surgery to push the intestines back into the baby’s abdomen and repair the hernia. The operation was a battle against time. Due to the pressure, some damage had already been done to the lungs.
Even more difficult than the surgery, Paret told The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday, was helping him survive the critical days after the two-hour operation. The baby was attached under sedation to an extracorporal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) device that gives oxygen and support to a newborn whose heart and lungs are so severely damaged that untreated, they can no longer function.
Without opening his chest, doctors attached the tiny baby to the ECMO via arteries in his neck, and he remained connected for four days. Gradually, his condition improved, as the expensive machine allowed his lungs and heart to recover their function . His worried parents caressed him while he lay attached to the device and they fasted all day for Ramadan. The pediatricians gradually reduced the flow of oxygen and stopped the machine momentarily to see if he could breathe and his heart could beat on its own. When persuaded that the organs could function without outside assistance, the doctors detached the ECMO, and he is recovering nicely.
“He’s a very sweet baby,” said Paret, “and his parents are very grateful. Where else in the world would medical teams bother to save a newborn from the middle of nowhere and suffering from such a congenital defect—and give him the absolutely best treatment available to save him? “He will be sent home next week and be a healthy child,” he said. “He will not need any special treatment or equipment as he recovers.”