Two live transmissions of heart surgeries takes place today at the World Congress ofCardiology
Latest TAVI and ABSORB procedures performed during surgery
Dubai is the first cityin the Middle East and fifth in the world toimplement the ABSORB technology for treating heart patients
United Arab Emirates, Dubai, April 19, 2012:Cardiologists from Dubai Health Authority’s( DHAs) heart team performed twoheart surgeries today which were transmitted live at the World Congress ofCardiology, which is taking place in Dubaiuntil April 20.
The cardiologistsperformed the surgeries at DubaiHospital and hundreds ofdelegates present at the World Congress of Cardiology had the opportunity toview the ‘live’ streaming of the surgeries.
The first surgery wasperformed this morning on a 74 year Iraqi women, who required a valvereplacement but was too old to undergo surgery.
Dr Fahad Baslaib,consultant interventional cardiologist and director of RashidHospital's cardiology department andDr Talib K Majwal, consultant, interventionalcardiology and director of interventional cardiology at the Heart Centre in Dubai Hospital,performed the latest procedure known as Transcatheter Aortic Valve Implantation(TAVI) for this patient.
Dr Baslaib said,“TAVI may be used as an alternative to standard surgical aortic valvereplacement. The procedure is performed on the beating heart without the needfor a sternotomy or cardiopulmonary bypass. This technology has been developed for those patients whocannot tolerate open heart surgery and or run a high risk with surgicalprocedures. The beauty of this technique is that it is a minimally invasiveoutpatient procedure which means no hospitalization is required and the periodof recovery is much shorter."
DrBaslaib added that this procedure is particularly helpful for elderly patientswho often develop a narrow aortic valve.
Hesaid this technique is one of the latest minimally invasive procedures and DHAteam members have been regularly performing this procedure from the end of 2011on patients who most require them.
TheDHA has already performed this procedure for nine patients all aged between 60to 80 years. One of the workshops was supervised by Professor AllanCribier, inventor of the new technique.
"Previouslypatients had to travel abroad for this treatment and the cost of performingthis procedure abroad is five times more than the cost of performing itlocally," he said.
The second livesurgery was performed on a patient who needed the ASBORB treatment. Dubai is the first city in the Middle East and only the fifth in the world to introduce ABSORB, aprocedure to treat coronary heart disease with a self-absorbing"scaffold" which dissolves in the body over time and yet manages tokeep blocked arteries open.
Dr Baslaib said, "This procedure isparticularly beneficial for younger patients as the scaffold dissolves in thebody over time. This means that the patient can go opt for further formsof treatment in future, something that the existing procedure of inserting ametal stent does not allow.”
“Our eventual aim is to keep patients awayfrom surgery as long as it is possible," said Dr Munjwal. “In this region,heart attacks take place earlier than the west and we diagnose patients who arequite young with blocked arteries and other such problems. We are very advancedwith our forms of minimally invasive treatments, especially for such patients,however, the point we aim to reiterate through this congress is that preventionis better than cure and people, especially young productive adults should keepthemselves healthy.”
Previous story:
RSS Feed
