Mangaluru: A private hospital in Karnataka's Mangaluru performed a minimally invasive procedure on January 8 using a transcatheter technique on a 65-year-old woman from Kenya, who was advised to undergo bypass surgery for the second time where she was first treated.
A doctor from the Indiana Hospital and Heart Institute in Mangaluru said that the Kenyan woman who had mitral valve disease underwent bypass surgery and the valve was replaced in 2014 at a hospital in Ahmedabad. After a gap of eight years, the valve became inadequate to function following which the woman's heart started malfunctioning following which she started she started having severe breathing problems and blood pressure problems.
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The woman then searched for an alternative way to treat her heart issues and found the hospital in Mangaluru. Dr. Yusuf Kumble, Head of Indiana Hospital suggested that the valve could be changed without removing the old valve through an interventional technique. It is a rare situation where the mitral valve is replaced without opening the heart and it is called transcatheter mitral valve replacement (TMVR).
Doctors said that the procedure was completed in one hour and the patient was able to move out of the ICU in 24 hours. The patient is ready for discharge after five days of hospitalization. A TMVR procedure has been successfully performed in the past, too. The Kenyan patient thanked the doctors and said that she was happy after the procedure.
