Let trauma of treatment not be more than trauma of disease

Kolkata, September 20, 2022: Apollo Multispeciality Hospitals Kolkata gave new lives to three nonagenarians by Minimally Invasive Cardiac Surgeries (MICS). 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.

An 85-year-old woman and an 87-year-old man came to Apollo Multispeciality Hospitals Kolkata with severe chest pain. Individual angiograms revealed certain kind of critical blockages that could not be treated with angioplasty. Thus open heart surgery was the only option for both of them. But considering their age, surgery couldn’t be the first choice of treatment. At that age bypass heart surgery isn’t preferable because a big surgery is not dealt with in a very smooth manner and there could be many complications related to the surgery. Through MICS multi vessel grafting was done in both the patients and both were up and walking in two days’ time, which was unthinkable if it was done through normal route of cardiac surgery.

Present at the occasion, Dr Sushan Mukhopadhyay Director, Cardio Thoracic & Vascular Surgeon, Apollo Multispeciality Hospitals, Kolkata, said, “With a record of over 4000 MICS, doctors at Apollo perform cardiac surgeries through minimal invasion. We had another 82-year-old man with cardio genic shock, severe aortic valve stenosis, in ventilator, and no urine output for 12 hours. We did trans-catheter aortic valve replacement (TAVI) through MICS. In 48 hours he recovered fully. On further check-up it was found that his heart function improved significantly and he is leading a 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.

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