CHENNAI: MIOT Hospital, Chennai, under the guidance of a Japanese specialist, performed the Percutaneous Coronary Interventions on two patients with completely blocked arteries on Wednesday. This advanced angioplasty technique involves using a metal wire to dislodge blocks in the artery.
According to doctors, the non-invasive procedure on the first patient, a 42-year-old male, was completed in two hours. “The procedure usually takes more than four hours but we were able to finish in half the time because of the expert guidance,” said Dr. Saravanan Palaniappan, addressing presspersons in the afternoon.
While Percutaneous Coronary Interventions are slowly catching on in India, performing this procedure on patients with Chronic Total Occlusion (complete blocks) is risky because the wire can sometime puncture the artery. “There is a five per cent chance of death when performing this procedure on CTO cases,” said a doctor involved in the procedure, adding that the fatality chances drastically drop with the Japanese experts, who perform three or four procedures every day.
However, doctors claim this technique is much safer than open heart surgery which was once the norm. This procedure also improves ventricular function and caters for high-risk patients. Takahinde Suzuki, Japanese specialist, said he had a wonderful experience of working with Indian doctors.