Non-surgical procedures save 2 lives

Chennai: Two men with different cardiac complications un­d­e­rwent successful non-surgical procedures at the Rajiv Gandhi government general hospital here.

A 67-year-old man from Tiruttani suffered a heart attack in October and within three days, doctors at the hospital performed device closure for ventricular septal rupture (VSR). Dr M.S. Ravi, HoD of cardiology at Madras Medical College, said VSR is a complication of heart attack in which there is rupture of the wall separating the right and left side of the heart.

“The incidence of VSR is only two to three per cent among heart attack patients. Almost 95 per cent of people do not survive and doctors hardly perform surgeries due to the high mortality rate. In this case, the elderly man Ramanathan visited us with very low blood pressure due to poor cardiac function and the rupture was a consequ­ence of a heart atta­ck.”­

Dr Ravi led the team and closed the VSR percutaneoulsy through the femoral artery using a septal occluder device through a simple incision in the groin.

A stent was also placed across the obstructed coronary artery, which had originally caused the heart attack, said Dr Muthukumar, professor of cardiology, who add­ed, “The patient was discharged on the fifth day after the procedure.”

In another case, 22-year-old Mahendran fr­om­ Villu­puram, diagno­sed with a rare congenital cardiac ailment call­ed coarctation of the aorta, underwent ballo­on angioplasty and stenting procedure at the hospital. In both cases, procedures were done free of cost under the CM’s comprehensive health insurance scheme, said Dr V. Kanagasabai, dean of the hospital.