CANFIELD Area grad plays key role in new heart procedure

Dr. Pompili did clinical tests on an alternative to heart bypass surgery.
By WILLIAM K. ALCORN
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
CANFIELD -- Mary Jane Pompili said her son, Vincent, growing up in Canfield in the 1960s and 1970s, always wanted to be a physician.
But little did she know that 20 years later he would be at the forefront of a new procedure that could enable thousands of heart patients each year to skip bypass surgery.
Dr. Vincent J. Pompili, head of interventional cardiology at University Hospitals in Cleveland, did not develop the new procedure, called intracoronary brachytherapy. He did, however, do important research and two clinical trials on the new procedure while he was director of cardiac catheterization laboratories at Indiana University Medical Center that led to its approval by the Food and Drug Administration last fall.
"It was very exciting because we had a good inclination it would benefit patients," he said.
Select few: Only a few medical facilities nationwide, University Hospitals of Cleveland and the Cleveland Clinic in Northeast Ohio, are authorized to perform the therapy, he said.
Last week, Dr. Pompili led a team of physicians at University Hospitals that performed the new radiation therapy technique on two patients.
Dr. Pompili, 38, a 1980 graduate of Youngstown Cardinal Mooney High School, said the new therapy will benefit about 150,000 of the 750,000 U.S. heart patients a year who have stents implanted to keep their arteries open.
Published reports said he was surprised that the new therapy was not part of this week's treatment of Vice President Dick Cheney in Washington, D.C., who has a damaged artery.
Cheney had a stent installed in November. A stent is a circular wire mesh device that supports the walls of previously clogged blood vessels, permitting blood to flow. The problem is, in many cases, the blood vessel cells reproduce, move through the stent, and again clog the artery, Dr. Pompili said.
How it works: Intracoronary brachytherapy involves inserting a catheter in the thigh and opening the blocked stent with a balloon. The additional step is the application of a 15-minute dose of radiation, about equal to an X-ray, to the artery cells.
The radiation does not kill the cells but prevents them from dividing, growing and again clogging the artery, he said.
Patients remain awake during the 90-minute procedure, which is minimally invasive, and generally stay overnight in the hospital.
At this point, the radiation portion of the therapy is not covered by insurance. Dr. Pompili expects that will come with time, however.
Career: Dr. Pompili earned a bachelor of science degree from John Carroll University and graduated from Case Western Reserve School of Medicine, both in Cleveland. He did his internship at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, the University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, Mich., and the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.
He was associated professor of medicine at CWRU School of Medicine before coming to University Hospitals in 1999.
His mother said he is a "very humble, unique person ... who in his profession puts people first. I know he didn't go into this for the notoriety or the financial end of it."
"He always set high goals for himself ... and while his work is very important to him, he puts his family first. He'll attend a PTA meeting or whatever is necessary for his children," Mrs. Pompili said.
Dr. Pompili and his wife, the former Suzanne Walsh of Boardman, also a Mooney graduate, have two daughters, Maria, 7, and Caroline, 5, and live in Chagrin Falls.
His mother was a secretary at Youngstown State University, and his father, Vincent, has operated a barbershop in Hubbard for more than 40 years. They have two other children, Karen Klasic of Lansdale, Pa., and Eugene T. of Chagrin Falls.