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Alcohol Septal Ablation
for Hypertrophic Obstructive Cardimyopathy
UN official’s wife travels to Ben Taub
from Bangkok
 Duk-Myung Kim’s daily walks came increasingly harder. Eventually, bouts of
severe fatigue and shortness of breath sidelined her workouts entirely.
Diagnosed earlier this year with a rare cardiac disease, Kim got help Dec.
3 after traveling more than halfway around the world to Ben Taub Hospital
from Bangkok, Thailand.
As the wife of Hak-Su Kim, the United Nation’s undersecretary general for
Asian economic and social commerce, she could have gone anywhere in the
world for treatment.
Her doctor scheduled her for open-heart surgery at the Mayo Clinic in
Minnesota. However, such drastic surgery scared her, so she cancelled the
surgery.
After an extensive search on the Internet, the Kims found Dr. Nasser
Lakkis and his less-invasive heart procedure. Dr. Lakkis is director of
Invasive Cardiology at Ben Taub Hospital and associate professor at Baylor
College of Medicine.
“When we found Dr. Lakkis, we knew we had to come to Houston,” Mr. Kim
said.
Mrs. Kim’s disease, Hypertrophic Obstructive Cardiomyophathy (HOCM),
mirrors respiratory symptoms of shortness of breath and tiredness. It
usually goes undiagnosed. If left untreated, the disease (obstruction of
the left ventricle) can be fatal.
During the procedure, Dr. Lakkis makes a small incision in the skin to
thread a balloon catheter into the blood vessel, which nourishes the
abnormally enlarged muscle. A small-localized heart attack is induced by
injecting ethanol into the muscle. This scars the area to keep it from
obstructing the ventricle again. Since 1996, Dr. Lakkis and his colleagues
have performed 250 procedures, 50 alone at Ben Taub Hospital.
“We’re so happy with the procedure and happy to be at Ben Taub Hospital,”
Mrs. Kim said. “I felt good about my care, and the staff was friendly and
helpful.”
Dr. Lakkis expects Mrs. Kim to make a full recovery.
“Everything went well,” he said. “Mrs. Kim should see a very good
improvement in her breathing and her exercise tolerance.”
For her part, Mrs. Kim looks forward to resuming her daily walking
routine.
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