A successful rare heart surgery at Kauvery Hospital

CHENNAI: The Centre of Excellence (CoE) in Cardiology at Kauvery Hospital, Chennai successfully performed south India’s first Laser Assisted Primary Angioplasty on a 52-year-old man from Kolkata. The patient was admitted to hospital thirteen hours after the onset of chest pain, and had severe blockage in his coronary arteries.

Explaining about the need of urgency for this extremely critical patient, Dr R Anantharaman, senior consultant interventional cardiologist, Kauvery Hospital, said, “A heart attack ensues from the build-up of a clot (thrombus) at the site of a ruptured plaque which is made up of cholesterol deposits on the walls of the blood vessels (coronary arteries) that carry oxygen to the muscles of the heart.

As times passes, clots will accumulate, cutting off the blood flow, and irreversibly damaging the heart muscles (acute myocardial infarction). If there is no medical intervention, it could be fatal. The patient presented to our hospital with chest pain for nearly 13 hours.

On investigation, we found large amount of clots in the coronary arteries. The heart was also severely reduced in function. He was immediately given medicines to help the blood flow in the coronary artery to resume, which facilitated aspiration of thrombus during the primary angioplasty. Inspite of these medicines blood flow was not restored.”