Doctors at KIMS (Krishna Institute of Medical Sciences) in collaboration with Japanese specialists had successfully performed an advanced ‘CTO PCI’ (Chronic Total Occlusion Percutaneous coronary intervention) procedure on two patients suffering from severe chronic heart disease.

Dr Yamane, an authority on chronic total occlusion from Japan and Dr R K Jain a senior cardiologist at KIMS performed the advanced ‘CTO PCI’ procedure first time in India with a unique record of installing 3 bio-reabsorb able stents at a time in a single patient.

“It was a challenging task, but we took the risk and performed successful operation and inserted bio-reabsorb able drug coated stents to free the blockage in a patient’s artery. These stents will be absorbed inside the artery and over the time and chances of re deposition and blockage is very less and we can guarantee 95 per cent success rate with new technology,” said Dr R K Jain.

“The total cost of operation is around Rs.4 lakhs, it includes Rs.2.9 lakhs for bio-re-absorbable stents, another 1 to 1.2 lakhs for hospital expenses,” said Jain when asked about the cost of total procedure.

CTO is a condition where the arteries in a patient are totally blocked for a longer time resulting in significant decrease of blood supply causing ischemia or heart attack. As conventional procedures like bypass surgeries are risky, costly and not sufficient to relieve symptoms, doctors preferred new minimally invasive technique called CTO PCI. It is an angioplasty procedure performed using drug eluting stents to treat CTOs, thereby avoiding surgery.

Dr Yamane, CTO expert from Japan said, “CTO PCI procedure is relatively new in India and is yet to be launched in Japan. But we have developed most advanced software and hardware to do CTOs intervention, as many in our country prefer angioplasty over bypass surgery. We are initially providing training to senior doctors and specialists at KIMS and also looking forward to collaborate with other hospitals in India.”

Though CTO PCI is a challenging procedure, it gives fast improvement in symptoms, improvement in left ventricular (LV) function, and increase survival rates.