Page 52 - PMCC on the Globe and Mail - 2016 Edition

Broadcast
interrupted,
bypass
completed

How Ross Durant’s surgery lead to
a new understanding of
heart disease and diabetes

By David Israelson

they had to interrupt 01 costs between $10-million and open the patient’s chest to reach
$30-million. The PMCC is part the heart, and the recovery period
the broadcast Ross Durant treat patients with multivessel of a network of 10 major trial is longer. There is also a higher
was recording at the midtown coronary disease, and how heart centres; studies can range from risk of stroke.
Toronto church where he patients who are also diabetic samples as small as 20 patients
volunteers, and now he considers respond to different types of to as large as 20,000 around the “We share the decision-making
himself the luckiest man alive. treatment – bypass surgery or world. process with the patients and
insertion of stents into blood we allow them to make the
“I was having a heart attack. vessels. Apparently, Mr. Durant was an decisions,” Dr. Farkouh says.
The two co-broadcasters knew ideal case for demonstrating Dr.
exactly what was going on. They “Our study took place in Farkouh’s study findings. Mr. Durant was confident he
got me into a chair, gave me more than 100 centres, in 19 would be in good care regardless
some aspirin, dialed 911 and lo countries. It demonstrated that “He was able to explain that of the treatment route he chose.
and behold, I was on my way to bypass surgery was superior in there were different types of “To me, the people I met at the
Toronto General Hospital,” says preventing future heart attacks treatment available for a case like Peter Munk Cardiac Centre
Mr. Durant, now 83. and saving lives than using this. are the tops in their field.
stents,” Dr. Farkouh says. The They’re really outstanding.
It was October 21, 2012, when clinical trial cost US$25-million. It’s not necessarily an easy They’re friendly, you don’t feel
Mr. Durant was admitted to decision because a bypass is intimidated and they do their
the Peter Munk Cardiac Centre “We have multiple pathways for much more invasive than a stent best to communicate with you,”
(PMCC). “They said if it was a funding, and we need all of them.” procedure. It involves cracking
heart attack, I would be their
guest, so I became their guest,” The average clinical trial
he says.

What makes Mr. Durant
consider himself so lucky is
that one of the key physicians
attending to him at the PMCC
was Dr. Michael Farkouh, a
cardiologist whose expertise
would turn out to have particular
bearing on this case. In addition
to having a heart attack, Mr.
Durant is diabetic.

Dr. Farkouh is Chair of the
PMCC’s Centre of Excellence in
Multinational Clinical Trials.

He says these types of trials are
a massive undertaking, requiring
co-ordination among centres
around the world, choosing and
deploying staff, navigating the
funding and grant applications,
as well as gathering and analyzing
the results.

He and his colleagues had
recently completed a large
international study of how to best

50 Peter Munk Cardiac Centre