35 to 40 MICS surgeries done every month, the highest in India

Kolkata, May 19, 2022: Apollo Multispecialty Hospitals, Kolkata today announced the successful completion of over 4000 Minimally Invasive Cardiac Surgeries (MICS) at its facility. MICS is a new avenue for heart surgery, which comes with a host of benefits. With an incision of 1.5 to 3 inch instead of 8 to 10 inch in the conventional open heart surgery, MICS is less painful and almost scar-less. It also involves early recovery with lesser duration of hospital stay post-surgery and early return to normal life.

Earlier traditional open surgery was the only solution for CABG (Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting), Valve repair or replacement, closures of holes in heart etc. But now with the advancement of medical sciences the procedures done using MICS are Minimally invasive bypass surgery (MICS CABG), Endoscopic vein and radial artery harvesting, MICS aortic valve, Minimally invasive mitral valve surgery, Keyhole ASD closure and Coronary Bypass.

This Keyhole Heart Surgery is performed using specialized surgical instruments. Heart attacks are responsible for 14.5% of all deaths in India and MICS CABG or keyhole bypass has emerged as an answer to patients suffering from coronary artery diseases. The doubts about being able to complete surgeries safely through this approach is circumvented. If MICS is adopted as a regular practice everywhere, people would consider MICS bypass over angioplasty and the figure of 14.5% will surely come down. And routine multi-vessel bypass would reduce mortality risk significantly.

Dr Sushan Mukhopadhyay Director, Cardio Thoracic & Vascular Surgeon, Apollo Multispeciality Hospitals, Kolkata, said, “MICS offers unmatched patient outcomes due to its multiple positive points. It’s safe, effective and delivers outstanding patient comfort. A patient opting for this procedure can return to his work within 2- 3 weeks and a normal life within 3 months, where as if he opts for a conventional procedure he would normally take 2-3 months to re-join work and 6 months to return to a normal life. It saves patients from pain as well as losing man hours. We have been doing MICS coronary artery bypass grafting since the last decade and have done more than 4,000 such surgeries.”

95% of all cardiac surgeries including Bypass, valve replacement, closing heart holes, removal of cardiac tumors, pace maker implantation and others can be done through MICS. It is even safe for very elderly patients who are above 80-90 years of age with other major health ailments.

MICS has several advantages over the conventional open heart surgery:

• Highly advanced instrumentation and advanced techniques allow for the operation to be performed very safely
• No bones are cut
• Blood loss is almost negligible eliminating blood transfusion leading to blood borne infections
• All infections related to wounds or post-operative lung infections are reduced. This makes the surgery ideal for diabetics or patients who have poor resistance to infection
• The incision is very cosmetic and measures just 2-3 inches making it impossible to understand that a heart surgery has been done. This also reduces the possibilities of scars
• The hospital stay and recovery time in this case is minimal and the patient usually recovers within 7 days of the surgery under normal circumstances
• Significantly reduced risk factors in future surgeries