Date:09/07/2009 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2009/07/09/stories/2009070960821300.htm

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

Training for cardiologists in complex angioplasty

Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD: Global Hospitals will offer a fellowship programme to train cardiologists in ‘complex coronary angioplasty,’ a treatment without bypass surgery for patients with complicated blocks in the blood vessels of the heart.

Disclosing this to mediapersons here on Wednesday, Managing Director Ravindranath said that cardiologists of the hospital had undergone training in the technique pioneered by the Japanese and had been practising it successfully for the last four years.

The three-month fellowship programme in Trans-Radial Interventional and Chronic Total Occlusion techniques was to train more cardiologists in the procedure.

Dr. V. Surya Prakasa Rao, Coordinator, Interventional Cardiology, said that blocks in heart blood vessels could be recent (a few weeks to months) or chronic (more than a few months to years).

While recent blocks were soft and not difficult to treat by balloon angioplasty, chronic total blocks contain hard cholesterol, calcium and fibrous material.

Japanese tachnique

Under this technique, special material procured from Japan would be used to drill hardened blocks and to place drug-coated stent without surgery.

A Rs. 3-crore intra-vascular ultra sound facility available only with Global would guide the cardiologist to do the intervention, Dr. Rao explained.