{"id":39271,"date":"2016-04-20T03:23:43","date_gmt":"2016-04-20T07:23:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/utnews.utoledo.edu\/?p=39271"},"modified":"2020-10-21T14:23:24","modified_gmt":"2020-10-21T18:23:24","slug":"ut-health-cardiologists-give-pioneering-heart-exam-to-gorilla-at-toledo-zoo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/04_20_2016\/ut-health-cardiologists-give-pioneering-heart-exam-to-gorilla-at-toledo-zoo","title":{"rendered":"UT Health cardiologists give pioneering heart exam to gorilla at Toledo Zoo"},"content":{"rendered":"

The largest of all primates at the Toledo Zoo turned out to be the perfect patient, only hairier.<\/p>\n

\u201cWorking with a gorilla was a scary and exciting experience,\u201d said Dr. Samer Khouri, UT Health cardiologist and director of cardiac imaging. \u201cWe were in a controlled environment, but Kwisha is a 470-pound, muscular creature. He is so powerful that his hand has the ability to crush all the bones in my hand with one squeeze.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Amy<\/a>

Amy Lather, an ultrasound technician at UT Medical Center, conducted an ultrasound on Kwisha the gorilla at the Toledo Zoo as Dr. Qaiser Shafiq, a cardiology fellow in the University training program, center, watched. \u00a0<\/p><\/div>Several cardiologists, anesthesiologist Dr. Andrew Casabianca, and ultrasound technician Amy Lather from The University of Toledo Medical Center recently volunteered their human health-care expertise for the 27-year-old male western lowland gorilla.<\/p>\n

\u201cHeart disease is a global problem facing great apes,\u201d Dr. Kirsten Thomas, Toledo Zoo associate veterinarian, said. \u201cThe UTMC team was brought in to provide a new and unique measurement of cardiac health in great apes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe take pride in the high-quality care we provide our animals here at the Toledo Zoo,\u201d Jeff Sailer, Toledo Zoo executive director, said.\u00a0\u201cThis collaboration with UTMC offered an additional level of imaging and cardiac expertise helping us to provide the best possible care for Kwisha.\u201d<\/p>\n

Under the oversight of zoo veterinarians, the UT team conducted a comprehensive heart exam while Kwisha was under anesthesia. The specialists gave the gorilla a clean bill of health with no immediate issues that need to be addressed. <\/p>\n

\"Kwisha<\/a>

Kwisha in 2013 in this photo courtesy of Andi Norman\/Toledo Zoo<\/p><\/div>\u201cKwisha\u2019s pictures look good,\u201d said Dr. Christopher Cooper, executive vice president for clinical affairs and dean of the College of Medicine and Life Sciences. \u201cWe were happy to help. This also was a terrific opportunity for us to learn more from a highly related, yet nonhuman primate about cardiac performance.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA gorilla\u2019s heart is almost the same as a human heart \u2014 only bigger,\u201d Khouri said. \u201cWe followed the same principles, but this checkup was anything but routine. What\u2019s amazing to me is how similar gorillas are to us physically.\u201d<\/p>\n

The silverback gorilla\u2019s screening included an echocardiogram and a strain test, which is believed to have been the first strain analysis ever done on an ape.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a more sensitive and more accurate test,\u201d Khouri said. \u201cThe process takes a detailed look at the contraction of heart muscle. We can detect any problem in the heart before it\u2019s apparent in a regular echo.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTo the best of our knowledge, the strain test has not previously been performed in great apes, and is a novel approach to measuring cardiac function in these animals,\u201d Thomas said. \u201cThe collective efforts of the UTMC cardiac team and Toledo Zoo veterinary staff has provided us the opportunity to be on the cutting edge of great ape research.\u201d<\/p>\n

Khouri plans to publish the new data soon and hopes to expand the work to include more apes to advance knowledge about heart function.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is an important first step for research to compare a gorilla to human heart contraction and function,\u201d Khouri said. \u201cDoing this special analysis makes us proud. Taking care of this kind of animal shows that every life on the planet deserves respect and highlights how similar we are to all creatures on earth.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Several cardiologists, anesthesiologist Dr. Andrew Casabianca, and ultrasound technician Amy Lather from UT Medical Center recently volunteered their human health-care expertise to examine Kwisha, a male western lowland gorilla at the Toledo Zoo.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":812,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,38,1,3,63],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39271"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/812"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39271"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39271\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61668,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39271\/revisions\/61668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}