Chennai: Cardiac surgeons in the city say minimally invasive cardiac surgery (MICS) will be the future of our country. While in conventional method, blood loss is more and hospital stay is prolonged, in MICS blood loss is very minimal and patients stay at hospital only for a few days.
Recently, minimally invasive cardiac surgeon at Global Health City, Dr M.M. Yusuf, used MICS for treating hypertrophic obstructive cardio myopathy (HOCM), a genetic disorder that causes the heart muscle to grow abnormally thick.
The cardiac surgeon said septum muscle swells in case of HOCM and it is very rare. “Only one to two per cent of the population suffers from this disorder,” said Dr. Yusuf. For the first time, the surgeon used minimally invasive method to treat the disorder on a 45-year-old IT professional from Bengaluru.
“We have been using this method for a decade now but not for this particular genetic disorder. In MICS, we avoid cut along the sternum (the chest bone) and cut only upper part of the sternum (5 to 6 cm). The recovery is quick in this case,” explained Dr. Yusuf.
Explaining the case, Dr Yusuf said the patient visited the hospital with history of chest pain on brisk walking for six months. Echocardiogram investigation revealed HOCM causing subvalvular aortic stenosis (narrowing of the aortic valve).
“This new approach is more apt to treat this condition as the patient is very young and he also said he had to join work in two weeks. ” said the cardiac surgeon. Not all procedures can be minimally invasive. “In some procedures we have to use the traditional open heart surgery. Government hospitals are performing more number of such procedures,” said a senior cardiac surgeon at a government hospital, adding we are able to procure the latest equipment and use the high-end technology for performing minimally invasive procedures.
Senior cardiac surgeon, Dr Ganesan, said as such procedures are performed through small incisions, blood loss is minimum. Senior interventional cardiologist, Dr Harikrishnan, says advanced techniques have come up now to treat more complex cases. They point out that the cost is at least '50,000 more for such procedures than the conventional method.
