BOB
BREATHING BOOSTER #1209
Television News Service/Medical Breakthroughs
)Ivanhoe Broadcast News, Inc. 1997
Imagine never moving your arms and legs. That's the
life of a
quadriplegic. Many can't even breathe without
machines
to help.
Now, a Tucson surgeon has found a way to trick the
body
into
breathing on its own without help from the brain.
Ron Trozzi keeps busy with his herb garden business,
even
though he hasn't been able to use his arms or legs
since a diving
accident 20 years ago. A motorcycle crash also left
33-year-old
Sean a quadriplegic. The difference between the two
men? Sean
still needs machines to help him speak and breathe. Ron does it on his own.
Ron Trozzi, "My break was lower. My respiration wasn't cut off."
Sean's spinal cord injury occurred above the area that controls
breathing. Losing the ability to breathe means relying on machines
to stay alive. Spine surgeon Mitchell Gropper says quadriplegics
who breathe with ventilators face a future of life-threatening
problems.
Mitchell Gropper, M.D., neurologist, University of Arizona,
Tucson, Ariz., "The small airways will collapse, and the patients will have
problems from that,
whether it be either fever or development of pneumonia. Pneumonia is one of
the highest killers
of quadriplegics."
But now, Dr. Gropper has a way to bypass the brain
and
help the
body breathe on its own. The first step involves
placing a living
nerve into the dead nerves that trigger breathing.
Next
comes a
pacemaker. An electric impulse mimics brain signals
that control
the diaphragm.
Mitchell Gropper, M.D., "You wait about three months
and the
nerve should have grown back to the diaphragm to its
end. Then
you can turn the pacemaker on."
Six patients in Europe now breathe on their own because of this technique.
Sean may be Dr.
Gropper's next candidate and on his way toward the independence that Ron
enjoys.
The first surgery of this kind was performed five years ago, and that
patient
is still breathing on
his own.
Mitchell Gropper, M.D.
Department of Neurosurgery
University of Arizona
Health Sciences Center
1501 North Campbell Avenue
Tucson, Arizona 85724
(520) 626-7223
e-mail: discodoc(AT)aol.com