Hyderabad: Taking pride in Telangana being the host of an international conference of cardiologists, Assembly Speaker Gaddam Prasad Kumar urged doctors to focus on research in remote areas.
"We must be prepared for crises like Covid-19 in the future. Additionally, prioritise rural and remote areas with a lack of medical facilities. I assure you of the Telangana government's full support for your research efforts to eliminate deaths from heart attacks in our country and worldwide," Prasad said.
He was addressing the 10th Indo-Japanese Chronic Total Occlusion Club (IJCTO) summit in Madhapur. The Speaker motivated doctors to find easy solutions to problems and conduct workshops to train young cardiologists to face future challenges.
The conference, hosting about 1,000 cardiologists from India and Japan, the US, Europe and other countries, aims to transfer the knowledge of the Japanese sutureless technique that has about a 90 per cent positive result in clearing chronic total occlusion in coronary artery diseases (CAD).
The founder of IJCTO, Dr Prakasa Rao, along with other course directors from India and Japan, has been performing surgeries in India with this technique for the past ten years.
Explaining the procedure, Dr Rao said that nearly 27 per cent of deaths in India are caused by CADs. "This may be due to unhealthy eating and sedentary lifestyle. Diabetes increases the risk of cardiovascular diseases fourfold. Over time, CAD worsens and arteries become blocked and hardened, resulting in chronic total occlusion. This is usually treated with bypass surgery. Chronic total occlusions can be cleared with a special Japanese technique without bypass, boasting a success rate of more than 90 per cent," he said.
Dr Rao and his team also conduct workshops across India to train young cardiologists in this technique. This expertise brings hope to patients facing challenging conditions.
Health secretary Dr Christina Z. Chongthu, speaking at the event, said, " It's impressive to know that there is a way to avoid bypass surgeries using Japanese sutureless techniques. When I was an MBBS student at Osmania University, something like this was very much in the future. It is encouraging to see how far we've come. This knowledge needs to be shared with younger students. Besides scientific advancements, we also need to focus on creating awareness in food, exercise, lifestyle management and avoiding stress," she said.
The other members of the club who are also course directors, and Japanese faculty members were also present at the conference and congratulated each other for completing ten years of knowledge generation and transfer.
