Dubai, 19 April, 2012(WAM)-- Cardiologists from Dubai Health Authoritys ( DHA) heart team performed two heart surgeries today using latest TAVI and ABSORB procedures, which were transmitted live at the World Congress of Cardiology, being held in Dubai until April 20.
The cardiologists performed the surgeries at Dubai Hospital and hundreds of delegates present at the World Congress of Cardiology had the opportunity to view the live streaming of the surgeries. The first surgery was performed this morning on a 74 year Iraqi women, who required a valve replacement but was too old to undergo surgery. Dr Fahad Baslaib, consultant interventional cardiologist and director of Rashid Hospital's cardiology department and Dr Talib K Majwal, consultant, interventional cardiology 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 valve replacement. The procedure is performed on the beating heart without the need for a sternotomy or cardiopulmonary bypass. This technology has been developed for those patients who cannot tolerate open heart surgery and or run a high risk with surgical procedures. The beauty of this technique is that it is a minimally invasive outpatient procedure which means no hospitalization is required and the period of recovery is much shorter."Dr Baslaib added that this procedure is particularly helpful for elderly patients who often develop a narrow aortic valve. He said this technique is one of the latest minimally invasive procedures and DHA team members have been regularly performing this procedure from the end of 2011 on patients who most require them. The DHA has already performed this procedure for nine patients all aged between 60 to 80 years. One of the workshops was supervised by Professor Allan Cribier, inventor of the new technique. "Previously patients had to travel abroad for this treatment and the cost of performing this procedure abroad is five times more than the cost of performing it locally," he said. The second live surgery 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, a procedure to treat coronary heart disease with a self-absorbing "scaffold" which dissolves in the body over time and yet manages to keep blocked arteries open. Dr Baslaib said, "This procedure is particularly beneficial for younger patients as the scaffold dissolves in the body over time. This means that the patient can go opt for further forms of treatment in future, something that the existing procedure of inserting a metal stent does not allow." "Our eventual aim is to keep patients away from 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 are quite young with blocked arteries and other such problems. We are very advanced with our forms of minimally invasive treatments, especially for such patients, however, the point we aim to reiterate through this congress is that prevention is better than cure and people, especially young productive adults should keep themselves healthy."wam/latheef.Copyright Emirates News Agency (WAM) 2012.
