Rota Glide, an emulsion used to reduce catheter friction can prevent cardiac bypass surgery in some patients

Medindia.com – An emulsion made up from olive oil, glycerine and egg yolk would prevent the patient from undergoing a cardiac bypass surgery.

The journal of Catheterization and Cardiovascular Interventions has already published this study which was led by Michael Savage, M.D., director, Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, Philadelphia.

The mixture is not swallowed, Dr. Savage explains. Rather, it is used in the Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory to bathe surgical stents before they are inserted into problem heart arteries.

Since being introduced in 1994, stents--the metal mesh tubes placed in a coronary artery to keep it open after an interventional procedure--have worked in the majority of patients.Coated or drug-eluting stents, which prevented restenosis (the re-closing of the artery a short time after stent insertion) were the next advance in this field.

"There are still a small number of patients with arteries that cannot be stented because of anatomic obstacles," said Dr. Savage, who is also associate professor of Medicine, Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University.

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