Date:30/05/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/05/30/stories/2008053058880300.htm

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Heart surgery performed with new device

Staff Reporter

PHOTO: V. GANESAN

M.Rajammal, who underwent radiofrequency ablation procedure at Government General Hospital recently, with Head of the Cardiology Department K. Harshavardhan, in Chennai on Thursday. —

CHENNAI: When M. Rajammal was referred to the Government General Hospital here by the GH in Thanjavur, all she wanted was relief from breathlessness, pain in joints and fatigue.

Ms. Rajammal (47), an agricultural labourer in Kovilur near Ariyalur, had been suffering for seven years. At Thanjavur the doctors diagnosed her condition as ‘hole in the heart’ and sent her to Chennai.

The doctors at the GH here diagnosed it as arrhythmia, a condition in which, instead of the usual 72 beats per minute, her heart rate was 100-120 beats, resulting in poor blood supply to the lower chambers of the heart.

Doctors said she was suffering from arrhythmia and narrowing of mitral valve opening (mitral stenosis) and atrial fibrillation that could be set right by valve replacement surgery and a surgery to rectify the erratic heart rate. It was at this juncture that the Tamil Nadu Medical Services Corporation sought the hospital’s opinion on installing the new radiofrequency ablation device.

The device is currently available only in the Perambur Railway Hospital in the government sector, K. Harshavardhan, Head of Cardiology Department, told reporters at a press meet on Thursday.

The device burns heart tissues responsible for erratic beat and sets right the electrical circuit of the heart.

In the conventional procedure, doctors make several slices of the atrium and the ventricle (upper and lower) chambers and then suture them.

Ms. Rajammal underwent the procedure that was performed using the device brought for demonstration at the hospital.

The damaged mitral valve was later replaced using artificial valve, Dr. Harshavardhan said. Earlier, such patients were on anti-arrhythmia drugs for years but after the procedure the patient would not be on drugs, doctors said.

When the mitral valve gets damaged, the atrium enlarges and the muscular heart tissues expand. Of the 230 patients who undergo valve replacement surgeries in the GH every year, about 60 per cent are diagnosed with arrhythmia-related heart problems, cardiologist N. Nagarajan and chief anaesthetist C. R. Kanyakumari said.

The hospital is set to acquire the device that costs Rs.20 lakh, Medical Superintendent R. Veerapandian said.

The device would provide relief to poor patients who would otherwise have to pay Rs. 1 lakh for the procedure in private hospitals, he said.