Medanta the Medicity becomes first to pull it off in India
Gurgaon/New Delhi: 82 yr old Deepa Gupta have got a new lease of life, thanks to new Trans Cather Mitral Valve Replacement (TMVR) technique used in Medanta for the first time in India. It looked as manna from heaven for aged and weak Mrs Gupta as she would not have been able to tolerate the traumatic and gruelling open heart surgery.
This technique is need of the hour in India as many patients over 80 with mitral valve disease are counting their days as surgery on them would be a treatment worse than the disease. Now, Medanta has raised hopes among them that they may also have some more active and easy life in the offing. For Aortic Valve Replacement, there is already a non invasive technique called TAVR (Trans Catheter Aortic Valve Replacement) method and hundreds of aged patients are being spared of the trauma of going through the distressing and risky surgery.
Now that TMVR has arrived, patients of mitral valve would also have the same comfortable and easy treatment like that of aortic valve patients. It is expected soon like TAVR, in India,TMVR would also be the standard treatment for mitral valve patients.
The Mitral Valve is one of the heart valves that prevent mixing oxygenated and deoxygenated blood. It is a complex valve to deal with. Talking to Medicare News, Dr Praveen Chandra, Chairman, Interventional Cardiology at Medanta in Gurgaon, said, ‘ With our success in TMVR, a new vista of hope has opened for aged and frail patients. Till Now, an open heart surgery was the only method to replace the mitral valve. The patient to receive TMVR, Deepa Gupta, is an aged, feeble and weak patient who would not have been able to withstand a major surgery. So we decided to do a Transcathetral Mitral Valve Replacement (TMVR) where the valve is accessed from a tiny hole near the groin.’
According to Dr Chandra, Mrs Gupta 82 had lost a lot of weight in the last one year, would always feel tired and spent and would not be able to walk. This was because the Mitral Valve that had been replaced nearly 10 years ago had deteriorated. She also had a pacemaker that needed a change of battery.
Dr Chandra, one of the ace angioplasty experts, added further, ‘ Medanta was her last resort because no hospital was ready to take up her case as surgery would have left her in extreme distress. Her daughter Sudha Gupta said, ‘We took her many other hospitals and they all said all they could do was replace the battery for the pacemaker. She was too weak to withstand another valve replacement surgery but even after batteries were changed she still had to keep gasping or breath and could not move around much.’
Dr Chandra said, ‘ The landmark success of TMVR is going to be a hallmark in the pursuit of making hard procedure like open heart surgery a thing of the past. This innovation was need of the hour as hundreds of old people are denied new lease of life without this non invasive procedure.’
