GREG MATIS is the Senior Scientist for Santa Barbara Infrared Inc. for the last 5 yrs working on Advanced Electro-Optical, Laser and Infrared Test Sets, Radiometry, and Dynamic Infrared Scene Projection.  Santa Barbara Infrared is a world leading supplier of standard and custom equipment for FLIR testing, IR detector testing, IR simulation, and IR/Visible/Laser boresight testing. http://www.sbir.com

RAY BERTOLERO is the Vice President of ESTECH Cardiac Surgery Specialists of San Ramon, California.  Estech makes dozens of products used daily by surgeons around the world.  Take a listen as he tells us about their EXCITING new BREAKTHRU CURES for Stage 3 heart failure and Atrial Fibrilation!!! http://www.estech.com/

Audio

Wayne B. Norris: And we’re back on the final segment of Business and Technology.  I’m your host, Wayne B. Norris, and we’re here with Ray Bertolero, vice president of Estech Cardiac Surgery Specialists.  He’s telling us about this brand new procedure that they’ve created that not very many people know about that’s saving lives right and left in heart failure cases.  So in the last few minutes, Ray, tell us all about it.  Everybody takes notes.  I’m sure everybody knows somebody with some heart condition.

Ray Bertolero:    Yeah and, like I say, the – one of the things is, and we look at millions – and I do mean millions – of patients, but we don’t – you know, it’s not something like high cholesterol, where every person in the country is a potential patient.  But there are millions of patients that do have heart attacks and then they go through this remodeling procedure.  And they start going from Stage 1 to Stage 2 to Stage 3 heart failure and, like I say, it’s not really widely known that there’s an effective surgical procedure that just doesn’t treat this.  It actually cures these patients.

Wayne B. Norris: Wow!

Ray Bertolero:    Yeah and that’s why it’s something that we’re really working hard to get the word out.  But because our target market is a few million people – it’s not 100 million people – so you just don’t have that potential for mass advertising to get the word out.  So we do a lot of work through public relations.

We also have another product which effectively treats an arrhythmia called atrial fibrillation.  This is another one that family practitioners, cardiologists don’t really know that there’s now a procedure that’s 90 percent effective in not just treating, but curing, atrial fibrillation. 

Wayne B. Norris: Wow.  Well, now that’s an electrical problem, isn’t it?

Ray Bertolero:    That’s an – yeah, an arrhythmia.  It’s a electrical impulse that’s erroneous that actually causes your heart to beat irregularly.  That’s the atrium.

Wayne B. Norris: And that’s the SA node? 

Ray Bertolero:    No, that’s not the SA node.  That’s on the right side.  But it’s actually the left atrium, and you get these electrical impulses are generated – they’re erroneous.  They’re actually generated usually from the pulmonary veins.  And so what happened is, they cause the atrium to fibrillate.  And what that does is, that can produce – it’s actually – because it’s – the heart isn’t beating correctly, it can produce clots.  It’s one of the leading causes of stroke.

Wayne B. Norris: Oh!

Ray Bertolero:    Yeah and with these devices that we’ve done, with radiofrequency devices that we have now that we can put into very small incisions or ports, we can actually put down a system of scars on the outside of the heart, and the electrical impulses can’t penetrate the scar, so it actually cures the disease.

Wayne B. Norris: That’s almost like radial keratotomy for your heart.

Ray Bertolero:    It certainly is.

Wayne B. Norris: That’s crazy.

Ray Bertolero:    It’s a minimally invasive procedure that takes a couple of hours and, again, it’s something that atrial fibrillation is quite serious and, again, new procedure.  Family practitioners, cardiologists don’t know to recommend this, but it’s something that, with the products that we’ve developed, can be treated quite effectively.

Wayne B. Norris: Everybody out there, we have to go pretty quick here, but this was Ray Bertolero, vice president of Estech Cardiac Surgery.  Write that down.  This is your host, Wayne B. Norris, and we’ll see you next week.