Saved by Leeches
Reported January 04, 2008
LOS ANGELES, Calif. (Ivanhoe Newswire) — Right now, nearly 100,000 people need an organ transplant. But for some, the life saving surgery wont happen because theyre allergic to the drugs needed for the surgery. Now, help may come in the form of leeches!
Daryl Vinson got his groove back! Its amazing he can move — let alone, salsa! Just four months before this interview, Vinsons heart shut down.
“As I was driving, I felt like my body was on like a dimmer on a light, and you start to turn it down, and as I was driving, I felt like someone was turning me off,” Vinson says.
He went straight to the hospital. Vinson says 80 percent of his heart had completely failed.
“He says, ‘Its so far gone, that the only thing thats going to save your life is going to be an immediate heart transplant,'” Vinson says.
He immediately cancelled his upcoming wedding and focused on getting a new heart. The catch? Vinson was allergic to Heparin — a blood thinner that plays a critical role in heart transplantation surgery.
“The end result, you give Heparin to somebody and they clot a lot of things in their body,” says Sinan Simsir, M.D., a cardiothoracic surgeon at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.
Dr. Simsir offered Vinson his only hope — leeches!
“It just secretes this substance in its saliva and it prevents clots from forming,” Dr. Simsir says.
Vinson got the synthetic version of leech saliva, bivalirudin, also known as Angiomax. It kept his blood from clotting, but the risk for Vinson was not over he could bleed to death.
“Theres no antidote. It just needs to get out of your system,” Dr. Simsir says.
But in just two hours, doctors filtered the drug out of Vinsons system and with his new heart, Vinson didnt waste any time!
“At that time, I was in the hospital and I was like, ‘You know what? This would be a really good time to get married! I called the chaplain downstairs and he thought it was a great idea,” Vinson says.
And now the couple has added a little spice to their salsa!
The Heparin substitute is currently used for angiograms, stents and heart attacks, but Vinson was one of the first to have it used for a heart transplant. Now, doctors are testing it for other organ transplants. In fact, one in four people are allergic to Heparin, and this drug from leech saliva may be an alternative.
FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center
Patient Information Line
(800) 233-2771