Chennai: Doctors at the Rajiv Gandhi government general hospital, Chennai, have demonstrated great skill in closing the ruptured heart blood vessel on a 46-year-old woman. This is the first time a state-run hospital has performed non-surgical closure of rupture of heart blood vessel. Chandrika, 46, who had been in agony on account of the ruptured heart blood vessel for several years. She had hopped from one hospital to another but could not get relief.
When she approached the RGGGH, she was diagnosed to be suffering from rupture of sinus valsalva and immediately a team of doctors, under dean Dr R. Vimala, closed the ruptured vessel. “She had tried treatment at 10 hospitals in vain and finally landed here. In the past, she had avoided surgery fearing for her life,” said Dr Vimala. “After diagnosis, we resorted to non-surgical closure of the 10x8 mm rupture and she was discharged the next day,” said Dr M.S. Ravi, cardiologist. Doctors: N. Swaminathan, S. Murugan and G. Manohar were also in the team.
According to sources, the sinuses of valsalva are three small dilatations in the wall of the aorta, immediately above the attachments of each aortic cusp. Rupture of these sinuses can manifest as sudden cardiac death, congestive cardiac failure or arrhythmias. Closure of these defects is increasingly being performed by interventional cardiologists. Transcatheter closure of a ruptured aneurysm of a sinus of calsalva was first performed by Cullen et al in 1994 using Rashkind umbrella device.
