June 29th, 2009

Did you know that an artery condition previously thought by doctors to be very rare, may actually be very common?

Reports the Wall Street Journal:

Fibromuscular dysplasia, a condition in which artery walls expand into and obstruct the arterial channel, is largely unknown to the public and even to the majority of doctors. When discussed in medical schools — if discussed at all — FMD is typically described as an obscure and rare disease.

Yet a tantalizing body of evidence has begun to emerge that suggests FMD isn’t rare at all: It simply isn’t looked for, so it is seldom diagnosed.

Some FMD patients aren’t diagnosed even after arriving in doctors’ offices with such severe events as strokes; burst aneurysms, or ballooned sections of arteries; and artery dissections, in which the inner artery lining peels away and hampers blood flow. Some FMD patients say they get dismissed by doctors who, rather than admit they don’t understand what is wrong, tell patients that their problems are psychosomatic.

A few thousand cases of FMD have been confirmed in the U.S., mostly during the last decade. The National Stroke Association in 2005 listed FMD as a cause of strokes. This year, a group of vascular specialists across the U.S. started a computerized registry of patients to analyze FMD’s scope, causes and treatments.

“I believe that a large number of Americans have FMD,” says Jeffrey W. Olin, director of vascular medicine and a professor at the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine in New York City. “It’s reasonable to say that many thousands could be saved from complications like heart attack, stroke, ruptured aneurysm and even death, by screening patients.”

Find out more about what doctors are saying about FMD at the WSJ.