Telangana tops heart attack responsiveness

In a promising outcome, the study conducted by the Cardiological Society of India (CSI) revealed that Hyderabad was way ahead of the national average on primary angioplasties. Briefing media persons on Friday, CSI-Telangana members, Dr J Shiv Kumar, President; Dr K Narasa Raju, Secretary; Dr (Col) M Sitaram, Treasurer and Dr Sridhar Reddy Peddi, Jt. Secretary informed the same.​

“The Cardiological Society of India of Telangana State Chapter has conducted a snap shot survey whereby we tried to collect the data of Primary Angioplasties done in our State during this week. The initial data shows rate of Primary Angioplasties is about 23 per cent in Hyderabad and 10 per cent in other Districts. This helps us to educate the first care Physicians and the lay public towards the urgent need of therapy and its goal,” they said.

Primary Coronary Angioplasty is among the few cardiac therapies that saves life and involves opening of clogged artery during ongoing heart attack. “Time is muscle in acute heart attacks, so the time to access a reasonably good healthcare is averaging from four to six hours to nearly 12 hours in urban and semi-urban areas,” said the CSI members.

Elaborating on this, Dr Kumar said, “In the survey done in 37 cardiac centres in Telangana during the period August 18 to 24, upto 296 angioplasties were reported, of which only 76 were primary angioplasties. Only 23 per cent of the total heart attacks in the State, during the period could undergo primary angioplasty and the remaining couldn't benefit from it.

“However Hyderabad is way ahead of national average of 8-13 per cent, even the Telangana districts with 10 per cent are better off than the national average,” he said.

“To improve the average and benefit more patients, we need to raise awareness about 'Time being Muscle", reaching the nearest cardiac center at the earliest amongst general public, physicians the primary contact of patients need to be educated on this besides having better infrastructure like good roads, dedicated lanes, ambulances,” said Dr Kumar.

Dr K.Narasa Raju said, “Despite bettering the national average there is a huge gap, 77 per cent of the patients are not getting the best treatment of primary angioplasty. The reasons are associated with cost factor, lack of awareness that in case of heart attack reaching a cardiac centre with in the window period of 90 minutes can help preventing damage to heart muscle.”

Dr Sridhar Peddi added, “In cities often the patient is delayed due to lack of right to way for ambulances. Inculcating the habit of making way for ambulance amongst the commuters and having dedicated lanes for ambulances can help in saving the patient's heart muscle.”