Amy Yasbeck on a Crusade to Prevent Aortic Disease

[Pavan]

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/...n/6347066.html

John Ritter’s widow on crusade
Amy Yasbeck aims to prevent disease that killed husband
By ERIC BERGER Copyright 2009 Houston Chronicle

Since the death of her husband, John Ritter, more than five years ago, actress Amy Yasbeck has become a missionary in the effort to prevent the aortic disease that killed the popular actor.

“I became deputized in the fight right then,” Yasbeck said during a visit to Houston on Friday. “All of a sudden, it’s John the Baptist time, and, all of a sudden, you’re out there saving not souls, but aortas.”

In the case of aortic dissections, Yasbeck has been able to do much more than raise the profile of a disease or increase funding for research. With the help of Houston-based physician Dr. Dianna Milewicz, she has saved lives.

The pair began with John Ritter’s brother, Tom, whose swelling aorta was detected a couple of years ago and operated on before it burst.

A geneticist at The University of Texas Medical School at Houston, Milewicz has spent much of her career studying the genetics of aortic disease, particularly aneurysms, which occur when the garden hose-sized artery inside a person’s chest swells to double or triple normal size.

Eventually the aorta tears or ruptures — an aortic dissection. This kills about 18,000 Americans a year.
5 gene mutations

Scientists believe about 20 percent of those cases are inherited, and that genes predisposing people to aortic dissections are passed from generation to generation.

A decade ago, Milewicz began enrolling families to try to identify common genetic mutations that mayraise a person’s risk. Since then, her group has identified five gene mutations that suggest a carrier’s aorta has an 80 to 100 percent chance of dissecting during his or her lifetime.

Two years after Ritter’s death in 2003, Yasbeck learned of Milewicz’s work and contacted her because she was concerned about her own children inheriting the disease. John Ritter’s father, western star Tex Ritter, died of heart problems that may have been misdiagnosed as a heart attack.

After Yasbeck and Milewicz met, the Houston researcher became concerned about Tom Ritter, who previously had a stroke.

In 2007, he underwent a higher resolution scan and doctors found that his own aorta was ballooning to an unhealthy size. He underwent an operation in California and has recovered.

By eventually identifying all of the genes that predispose people to aortic dissections, Milewicz said she hopes to prevent thousands of deaths a year by having people at risk undergo regular echocardiograms to scan for swelling aortas.

“That’s been the driving goal of all our work,” she said.

She’s found a vocal ally in Yasbeck, who starred in the sitcom Wings and acted in movies such as Pretty Woman and The Mask.

Yasbeck regularly speaks out about the disease and encourages families with histories of aortic aneurysms to enroll in Milewicz’s long-term study of families with the disease. Her own family enrolled in the study years ago.



For more information visit the John Ritter Foundation for Aortic Health at:

http://johnritterfoundation.org/

[Schmoopie]

I'm not sure how I missed this thread but I met her at a memorial gathering for actor Richard Biggs (of Babylon 5 and Days of our Lives) who died of the same thing. She was VERY, VERY nice! I think it's great that she's educating people about this subject.

[Marvo301]

It's nice to think that in his death, John Ritter may have saved the lives of many others. And I applaud his widow Amy for all the work she has done and continues to do for this cause.