Chennai: “Heart disease is now the leading killer of men and women in the country. According to a study published by the Lancet, cardiovascular disease caused more than 2.1 million deaths in India in 2015. Thankfully, rapid changes in the healthcare landscape like minimally invasive therapies have led to improved outcomes for patients,” said Apollo Hospitals interventional cardiologist Dr Sai Satish.
He said this while successfully showcasing four of his patients in their 80s who had recovered from complex coronary lesions and valve disorders after undergoing through some of the latest procedures namely Complex PCI, Mitra Clip, Transcatheter Aortic valve implantation (TAVI) and Rotablation at a press meet here Thursday.
“From being unable to walk with chest pain to climbing 15,000-feet height in Tibet and driving himself around town on a daily basis, Complex PCI procedure has redefined Babu Bhai Suchede’s (89) life,” Dr Sai said.
Saradhal Alagappan (86) has turned out to be India’s oldest one to receive Mitra Clip. From being crippled by aortic stenosis to a point where daily activity was a strain, Rangaswamy (80) has now got back to yoga and workouts through Transcatheter Aortic valve implantation (TAVI) and Gopaldas Jaisingh (83) underwent Rotablation and Complex PCI procedure.
Explaining about Mitra Clip, which has been adopted for first time on an old patient in India, Dr Sai, said, “Mitral regurgitation is a condition in which the heart’s mitral valve leaflets do not close tightly. As a result, with every beat blood flows backward inside the heart instead of just going forward.
The heart must then work harder to push all this left over blood out to the body, which can cause fatigue, shortness of breath and finally heart failure. The MitraClip has come as a blessing to heart failure patients and simply repairs the mitral valve by clipping its leaflets together. This too is done in a cardiac cath lab via a vein in the leg. The recovery is dramatic with the patient feeling better the very next day.”