TAVR has been approved in India in last few months, but yet it has not been utilised by sick aortic valve stenosis patients in Mumbai due to lack of awareness.
Today, a team of Cardiologists headed by Dr Ganesh Kumar performed their first TAVR(Mumbai or our hospital only) in 80 year old patients who previously had already undergone a CABG (by- pass surgery) now having detoriating quality of life due to aortic valve stenosis. Aortic valve is at the junction of left ventricle (LV) (pumping chamber of heart) and aorta, (the main receiving artery of the body). With age, in some patients it gets narrowed, hence LV has to apply lot of force to eject blood to aorta. If not treated on time, can lead to heart failure or sudden death. Traditionally all these years aortic valve replacement was done by open heart surgery. World over in the last one decade all high risk cases (especially elderly people with other co-morbidity) requiring aortic valve replacement not deemed fit for open heart are increasing undergoing TAVR. Unfortunately due to beurocratic hurdles in India and red tape, this treatment, in India, was made available in last few months.
Dr Ganesh Kumar - Chief Of Cardiology at Dr L H Hiranandani Hospital says “Our patient being elderly and with previous CABG was an ideal candidate for TAVR. Patient was admitted yesterday, today TAVR was performed with procedure time of one hour and is expected to get discharged in next one day of observation”.