Chennai: ”India has implanted 47 pulmonary valves so far, of which MMM Chennai has been the leader to implant 22 valves. They include Venus valves in 16, Melody in 2 and Sapien valve in 1 patient and MyVal in 3 patients,” said Madras Medical Mission senior consultant and head, Paediatric Cardiology, Dr K Sivakumar.
Among the first three valves, MMM Chennai was the first in India to implant the pulmonary valve in a patient, a press release said. MMM has been in the forefront for transcatheter valve therapies and apart from aortic valve replacement, they have been performing mitral valve and pulmonary valve transcatheter replacements.
”Transcatheter pulmonary valve implantation has evolved as a viable safe less morbid procedure of implanting a valve made from xenograft pericardial tissue into the pulmonary position,” said Sivakumar.
”The indigenous Meril valve which is made in India has obtained both DCGI clearance and CE approval in Europe. This valve is now accessible at half of the cost of the American / European valve and is affordable for Indian patients. Twenty Meril mitral valves have been implanted in India and MMM has performed three of these replacements”, said MMM director, cardiology, Dr Ajit Mullasari S.
”MMM had taken the lead for setting up the first core lab for intravascular imaging five years ago and is now setting up the first core lab in the country for structural therapy. The core lab will be named after Dr. Mathew Samuel Kalarickal one of the pioneers of interventional cardiology in the country who has trained multiple interventionists in coronary and structural therapy”, he said.