Bulletin Spring‧Summer 2004

Diagnosis and Treatment of Heart Failure L ike obe s i t y, d i a b e t e s, hypertension and coronary artery disease, heart failure is an urban disease and one with a high mortality rate. The Division of Cardiology of the Department of Medicine and Therapeutics has pioneered a new therapy for heart failure —u n c o n v e n t i o n al cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT). The treatment involves the implantation of three pacing electrodes, instead of one or two in conventional treatment, in different chambers of the heart to improve its function. The survival rate is 85 per cent compared with 60 per cent for patients with severe heart failure without this therapy. Patients reported significant improvement in exercise capacity and displayed improved cardiac function. The division also pioneered two new technologies in echocardiography to assess heart failure patients — tissue synchronization imaging and three-dimensional echocardiography. These two new tools will help doctors to select appropriate patients for CRT. From left: Prof. Joseph Sung, Prof. Yu Cheuk-man, Prof. John Elsby Sanderson, and Dr. Fung Wing-hong of the Department of Medicine and Therapeutics Restoring Hearing to NPC Patients T he Department of Surgery has successfully pioneered the use of the Bone Anchored HearingAid (BAHA) in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) patients. The device is directly and permanently anchored to the skull behind the ear of the patient suffering from hearing loss caused by com- plications arising from radiotherapy. Instead of having sounds enter the outer ear canal and impinge on the eardrum as in normal hearing, sounds amplified by the device are conducted to the cochlea through a tiny titanium screw anchored to the skull and the bones of the skull. In current trials of the hearing aid, the Department of Surgery reports significant hearing improvements in NPC patients. It is shown to increase patient satisfaction and it promises improvement in quality of life, with implications extending beyond the patients to their families, friends, and colleagues. The device has been successfully used since 1996 to assist patients with hearing disabilities arising from other causes. This is the first time that the BAHA has been used on patients with NPC. How the BAHA works 5 4 Chinese University Bulletin Spring • Summer 2004