Advanced technology to help cardio surgeries

Many of the advanced techniques available and their appl­ications were disc­us­sed here on Wedn­esday by eminent cardiologists from across the country and abr­oad at an international complex coronary intervention (CC­I)­ wo­rkshop organised by Apollo Speciality H­osp­­itals, Vanagram.

Explaining that in a case of chronic total occlusion performing minimally invasive surgery can be complicated , Dr. P. Harik­ris­hn­an, senior consultant interventional cardiologist, said fortunately advanced techniques were now available to treat more complex cases.

“At the wor­kshop we dealt with special drilling and imaging techniques. A diamond drill is used to bore through a calcified coronary artery.

If the channel is blocked we go in from the opposite direction,” he added. Noted Japanese cardi­ologist, Dr. Yui­chi N­o­­g­uchi, who is als­o the general vice pre­sident of Tsukua Med­ical Ce­ntre, spoke of pro­­ce­dures like opt­ic­al cohe­rence tom­ogra­p­hy (O­CT­) and the retrograd­e technique.

While traditional coronary artery bypass gr­afts (CABG) requ­ired a hospital stay of over two weeks, the use of invasive me­thods like perc­u­ta­neo­us corona­ry inter­ven­t­i­on (PC­I) cut down this time an­d reduce the risks ­, he noted. “Du­ri­ng PCI a cardiologist feeds a def­lated ba­lloon or other device on a cat­heter from the in­gu­inal femoral arte­ry up through the blo­od ves­se­ls until they reach the site of the blockage in the heart,” he explained.