City-based hospital, Kovai Medical Center and Hospital (KMCH) recently performed a new generation heart valve replacement on beating heart. The hospital claims that they are the first ones to perform this surgery in Asia. Addressing the media this morning, Dr. Nalla G Palaniswami, Chairman, KMCH said “This successful first-in-man implantation of the new generation heart valve in Asia is a significant milestone for high end technology at KMCH, the value of the dry tissue technology will be a meaningful advancement for the treatment of severe Aortic Valve Stenosis.”
He told the media that in America only seven to eight people have performed this procedure and in Asia KMCH are the pioneers to perform this valve replacement procedure. The success rate of this procedure is 90% to 95%. Dr. Palaniswami added “As we grow old, the valves in our heart become hard due to age. This patient, a 76-year old gentleman had already undergone a bypass surgery. The panel of experts at our hospital recommended the implantation of the venibri valve as the best option for his condition. This is the maiden procedure that we successfully performed at KMCH. The patient is back on his feet in just two days post performing this procedure.”
At the press meet, Dr Nalla G Palaniswami, shared with the media that the team of specialists from the Heart Institute at KMCH including Dr Thomas Alexander, Consultant Interventional Cardiologist and Dr Prashant Vaijanath, Director of Cardiac Surgery performed this procedure.
The patient experienced shortness of breath, giddiness and his body did not receive the required amount of oxygen. This 76-year old patient was suffering from severe aortic stenosis. Little above 5 years, this patient had undergone bypass surgery elsewhere and he was diagnosed of critical severe aortic stenosis which ordinarily would have certainly necessitated for a repeat high risk open heart surgery to replace the diseased heart valve, but KMCH doctors team thought the other way round.
After confirming the appropriate valve size for the patient, a 29mm Venibri Valve System incorporating the pre-crimped, pre-loaded, pre-packaged "dry" tissue technology was brought in from Colorado USA. The delivery system was then inserted into the femoral artery over the guide-wire. Total time from opening the ready-for-use Venibri System to valve deployment was approximately just 15 minutes.
The operators were absolutely impressed with the clinical performance of the valve. Dr Thomas Alexander commented, that "The system is very easy to use and quite helpful in saving precious time for the patients. It provides an opportunity to treat emergent, severe and critical aortic stenosis conditions with ease and also effectively”.
Dr Prashant Vaijyanath, said that, "Dry tissue technology has become another important milestone since the first ever TAVR case in 2002. The advantages of this classic system is that , it turned a complex TAVR procedure into a relatively much easier one, like a PCI procedure. I believe physicians and patients will broadly benefit from this new technology”.