Milestones

The commitment of our Cardiologists and Cardio-Thoracic surgeons to the prevention and treatment of heart disease has led to the achievement of better outcomes and improved quality of life for thousands of cardiac patients who visit us every year, making Apollo Hospitals the most sought after hospital in India for Bypass surgery and Child heart surgery.

• Apollo Children’s Hospital, Chennai performs India’s first successful combined cardiac and tracheal surgery on 11 month old baby from Oman
• Apollo Hospitals, Chennai Performs First TAVR – Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement.
• Apollo Hospitals, Chennai successfully performs Asia’s first en-bloc combined heart & liver transplant, joining a very small set of transplant centers in the world to have done this.
• Apollo Hospitals, Hyderabad successfully treats a critically ill eleven day old baby with a complex and rare cardiac surgery – a first of its kind in India
• Pioneered open heart surgeries and cardiac catheterization, in the early 80’s.
• Conducted over 1,40,000 cardiac surgeries – one of only 10 hospitals in the world to achieve these volumes.
• Achieved a 99.6% success rate in cardiac bypass surgeries; over 91% of which were beating heart surgeries.
• Introduced cutting edge procedures like off-pump and beating-heart surgery, either by thoracotomy (minimal invasive access) or classical sternotomy, trans-radial angioplasty and stenting, mitral valve replacement.
• Largest series of aortic valve replacements with stentless heart valve bioprosthesis.
• Performed successful heart surgery on a 2 day old baby, and successfully implanted a pacemaker on a 97 year old patient.
• India’s first keyhole multiple bypass surgery, was conducted at the Indraprastha Apollo Hospital, Delhi. This technique uses a combination of small holes in the chest and a small incision, made indirectly over the coronary artery to be bypassed. It is often performed using robotics and video-imaging, which help the surgeon operate in a small area.
• An 8 year old Omani child with aortoarteritis and uncontrollable hypertension with impending kidney failure and intestinal gangrene was successfully managed by a simultaneous vascular reconstructive surgery on the narrowed arteries supplying to both the kidneys and the intestines, at Apollo Hospitals, Chennai. Such simultaneous bypass and reconstruction in a young child was a first for India and only a few such procedures have been done worldwide.
• First hospital group to bring the 320 Slice CT- Angio scan system and the 64 Slice CT-Angio scan system to India.
• Apollo Hospitals, Chennai completed 1,25,000 Coronary Angioplasties in 2013, including many refined procedures like Multi-Vessel Angioplasty, Left Main Angioplasty and Bifurcation Lesions.
• Apollo Hospitals, Chennai, completed a total of 25,000 coronary bypass procedures including 10,000 beating heart coronary bypass operations in 2009.
• Apollo launched Sachi –Saving a child’s heart – aimed at providing pediatric cardiac care to underprivileged children.
• First private healthcare provider to perform a heart transplant in 1995.
• Aortic Valve Replacement Surgery is no more a matter of Age. Rare Surgery at Indraprastha Apollo Hospitals, Delhi gave a new lease of life to Mrs. Kamal Vadera, an 82-year old woman.
• An unusual case of Myocardial infarction [heart attack] involving two areas in the heart [anterior and inferior walls], was successfully treated at Apollo Hospitals, Chennai.
• Latest M guard stent technology, a specially designed Mesh covered stent, was used to save a 27 year old man from an acute heart attack. Apollo Hospital first to introduce the technology in Chennai.
• Satguru Partap Singh from Apollo Hospitals, Ludhiana introduced multi-vessel beating heart coronary artery bypass surgery, using Minimally Invasive Cardiac Surgery (MICS) technique.
• The Apollo Hospitals, one of the six centres in India to be part of a global trial on using drug-eluting bio-resorbable stents, are the first in Chennai to use the product. The next generation in devices that relieve blood vessel blocks will dissolve within a couple of years. The device works like a regular stent by restoring blood flow to a clogged vessel. It also contains a drug that is slowly released to help the healing process.
• Apollo Hospitals Hyderabad launched a state-of-the-art cardiac facility ‘Centre for Advanced Cardiac Care’ (CACC), with dedicated, highly qualified and experienced cardiology and cardiothoracic teams, skilled technologists and support staff ably backed by a modern multi-specialty medical facility. The Center is equipped with state of the art modern flat panel cardiac catheterization laboratory and has acquired latest technology including Fractional Flow Reserve (FFR) and Intra vascular ultrasound (IVUS).
• First American underwent a successful Heart Transplant at Apollo Hospitals, Chennai Ronald Lemmer, 65 years old, was transplanted with the heart of a 36-year-old accident victim in an eight-hour surgery at Apollo Hospitals, Chennai. In the process, two records were also created. The patient was not only the first U.S. citizen to undergo a heart transplant in India, but he was also the oldest person to undergo a heart transplant in the country.
• Endovascular Aneurysm repair for 2 large aneurysms simultaneously performed at Apollo Hospitals, Chennai.
• Apollo Hospitals, Hyderabad performed coronary angioplasty using absorb-BVS for the first time in India.
• Apollo Hospitals, Chennai successfully performed a combined heart and lung transplant on the oldest recorded recipient in India.
• Apollo Hospitals, Chennai successfully performed a rare complex intervention procedure on an 80-year-old man who had a giant abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA).
• The Department of Heart and Lung Transplantation, Apollo Hospitals, Chennai, has performed over 64 transplantations. The team has performed 35 Heart transplants, 29 Lung transplants, 11 combined heart and lung transplant and 2 Double Lung transplants, 3 Single lung transplant with results on par with International standards. We have the foremost donor resuscitation and assessment program in the country that has lead to our outcomes (Long term survival Heart – 87% Lungs – 67% (Primary pulmonary hypertension -75%, Interstitial lung disease -60%)
• Achieved the best outcomes in Heart transplant with an 87% long term success rate.
• The oldest male (67 yrs) and female (63 yrs) in India underwent successful Heart transplantations at Apollo Hospitals, Chennai
• Largest number of lungs transplanted in a single unit in India.
• The first ever Bridge to Heart (BTH) transplant (LVAD to Heart transplant) to be performed in India was done in Apollo Hospitals, Chennai
• The team has performed the first successful emergency heart transplant in the country.
• Apollo Hospitals, Chennai performed the first OCT in the country (Optical Coherence Tomogram) for assessment of chronic rejection in a patient who is over 4 years post transplant. This technique is just evolving in the west.
• Apollo Hospitals, Chennai performed Single Lung transplant on the oldest person
• Apollo Hospitals, Chennai performed India’s first Double Lung transplant for Hermansky- Pudlak syndrome (2nd in world)
• Apollo Hospitals, Chennai performed India’s first Heart Lung and Kidney transplant (2nd in world)
• Apollo Hospitals, Chennai performed the largest ECMO series in the country for acute lung failure.
• Apollo Hospitals, Chennai performed the first heart transplantation in 1995. This patient went on to survive for 14 years (the longest Indian transplant survivor)
• The largest experience with endomyocardial biopsy for transplant surveillance in the country.
• In addition ISHLT (the International Society for Heart and lung transplant) based in the US has admitted us (as the first unit in India) to participate in their registry. This will not just ensure the international scrutiny and transparency of our program, but will also in their annual meeting showcase our outcomes against all International centres. This automatically ensures that we have to perform to the highest standards in this particularly demanding field.