Spokane heart study attacks arterial plaque

A Spokane physician and a nurse practitioner are gaining some international recognition after demonstrating for the first time in a clinical setting that the plaque buildup in arteries can not only be stopped but also reduced.

Bradley Bale and Amy Doneen, of the Spokane Heart Attack Prevention Clinic, 801 W. Fifth Ave., Suite 317, plan to present their findings Sunday and Monday to the International Atherosclerosis Symposium in Rome.

“What I am presenting is a new and exciting observation in clinical medicine,” Bale said, “that plaque can be reduced.”

He and Doneen were among the few participants chosen to make presentations to the symposium from among hundreds of medical reports submitted in writing.

Bale, a family physician who founded the clinic out of frustration from seeing patients who had repeated heart attacks, believes his findings have the potential to make significant advances against cardiovascular disease, which kills an estimated 2.4 million Americans each year, according the American Heart Association.

“You can take the biggest killer out there and beat it,” Bale said.

In a study of 209 patients, the clinic measured the extent of arterial disease in patients before and after they began “aggressive medical and lifestyle treatment.”

The patients underwent a carotid Intima-Media Thickness test, ultrasound technology rarely used outside of research laboratories. The IMT painlessly scans the carotid artery in the neck, and the results are sent to CardioRisk Inc., of Salt Lake City, where they are read by technicians, according to Bale.

“The protocol we use is reliable and reproducible,” Doneen said.

After one year, the clinic saw significant reductions in plaque in 116 patients and stabilized disease in 63 patients.

“After we started getting patients back, we started noticing that the plaque was smaller, or if they had small plaque, it was now gone,” Bale said.

The abstract Doneen is presenting in Rome compares the clinical use of IMT to look for structural evidence of atherosclerosis to the standard protocol, which is to assess the risk of arterial disease. The IMT, she said, can augment “Framingham” scoring that looks at risk factors such as family history, blood pressure or smoking.

Bale said that 35 percent to 50 percent of cardiovascular mortality is due to a sudden, unexpected cardiac event.

“Sixty-five percent of women who died had no idea they even had the disease,” he said.