Don Ho’s heart doctor pitches to Hawaii clients June 3, 2006

Posted by TheraVitae in : VesCell in the News , trackback

The Bangkok doctor who performed an experimental stem cell procedure on entertainer Don Ho is coming to Hawaii to aggressively market the medical treatment to the wealthy.

Six people, including Ho’s doctor and members of the marketing staff from the Bangkok Hospital Group Medical Center, will try to attract business from Hawaii at a seminar June 5 at the Renaissance Ilikai Waikiki Hotel. The seminar is free and open to the public.

Ho, 75, drew international attention to the procedure last December after flying to Thailand for treatment of a deteriorating heart muscle and abnormal heart rhythm. The operation was described as a last resort for the entertainer after doctors here said there was nothing more that could be done to treat him.

Ho was back in January doing two shows a week at the Ohana Waikiki Beachcomber Hotel.

The experimental stem cell procedure costs between $25,000 and $30,000, but has not been approved in the United States and isn’t covered by insurance.

Former Hawaii Gov. George Ariyoshi, a friend of Ho’s Bangkok heart surgeon, Dr. Kitipan Arom, will open the program. Ho plans to attend the session and may participate in a question-and-answer segment, but is not promoting the procedure, said Arom, co-founder of the Minneapolis Heart Institute at Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minnesota, which is among a number of research hospitals performing clinical trials using adult stem cell therapy.

Through his publicist, Donna Jung, Ho declined an interview, but issued this statement: “I don’t have a particular role to play but I’m interested in anything he might be doing.”

The Bangkok hospital is on an aggressive campaign to position itself in the global health market, particularly in Thailand, Hawaii, Asia and Europe, said Ralf Krewer, the hospital’s international marketing manager.

The Bangkok group is spending about $25,000 for the trip to Hawaii and an ad that ran in The Honolulu Advertiser. About 100 people are expected to attend. The group plans to host more seminars in Hawaii depending on interest, Krewer said.

“America’s becoming for us a more and more important market,” he said, adding that surgical procedures in Bangkok are up to 75 percent cheaper than in the United States.

TheraVitae Co., which operates in Thailand and Israel, developed the procedure that multiplies stem cells from a patient’s blood in a laboratory. The cells are then inserted into the heart or arteries to restore damaged tissue.

Since last May, the Bangkok doctors have performed the procedure on 54 patients, mostly Americans.

“There is some light for the people who don’t have any other option left and have severe end-stage heart failure,” said Arom, who worked more than 30 years on the Mainland.

The main concern of American doctors is whether stem cells survive and actually contribute to improved heart performance.

While the procedure has been proved to work on rats, no one knows its effect on humans, said Livingston Wong, who retired from well-known transplant practice Surgical Associates in Honolulu.

The local medical community warns that because the procedure hasn’t been approved, people should be cautious.

“It’s very peculiar,” said Ralph Shohet, University of Hawaii John A. Burns School of Medicine director of cardiovascular research. “The direct marketing of experimental therapies to desperate patients is a questionable practice.”