November 17, 2005

(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — A new center oriented toward providing state-of-the-art vascular care and promoting collaboration among the different specialties involved in that process has been established by UC Davis Health System.

The UC Davis Vascular Center is dedicated to providing comprehensive care to patients with atherosclerosis, the process in which fatty materials, cholesterol and other substances, collectively known as plaque, accumulate in the lining of an artery. This process often is referred to as “hardening of the arteries.”

The interim director of the Vascular Center is William C. Pevec, chief of vascular surgery and professor of surgery at the UC Davis School of Medicine and Medical Center. Pevec has been chief of the Division of Vascular Surgery since 1998 and established the medical center's endovascular surgical program, where he and other surgeons regularly perform minimally invasive interventional procedures.

Plaques can significantly reduce the blood's flow through an artery. When plaques become fragile and rupture, they cause blood clots that can block blood flow or break off and travel to another part of the body, causing a heart attack, limb loss or stroke.

Atherosclerosis is a systemic disease that manifests itself through a variety of symptoms. However, the treatment of the disease traditionally has been provided by physicians who concentrate on isolated signs of the illness. This approach can result in fragmented care that is inconvenient for the patient and inefficient for health-care providers.

The primary goal of the Vascular Center is to promote a comprehensive, collaborative and interdisciplinary approach to treating atherosclerosis. A key emphasis of the center is to enhance collaboration among different specialties, allowing both established and emerging diagnostic and therapeutic methods to be applied, increasing efficiency and reducing risks to patients. Among the specialties that could be participants in the center are vascular surgery, cardiology, interventional radiology, endocrinology and nephrology.

“This center will bring together a number of components that have traditionally been separated,” Pevec said. “The many facets of a patient's vascular disease will now be addressed as the systemic disease that it is, instead of being treated separately by various units.

“Surgeons, internists, cardiologists, endocrinologists and a number of other specialists are experts in treating patients within the scope of their own specialties,” Pevec said. “Through collaboration, we will exponentially improve the care we can provide.”