Now get advanced heart valve therapy in Hyderabad

Hyderabad: Patients with grave heart valve problems can now seek the world's best heart valve therapy at a fraction of the cost, here in Hyderabad.

FACTS Foundation from the city and Columbia Hospitals from New York have teamed up to establish "Heart Valve Therapy Programme" at Apollo Health City, Hyderabad.

This development will enable patients to seek the world-class TAVR (Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement) care in Hyderabad, without the need to travel to USA, thus rescuing several critical patients from imminent heart failure and at a much less cost than they would incur in USA.

According to Dr A Sreenivas Kumar, founder director, FACTS Foundation, a non-profit organisation of cardiologists and cardiac surgeons, TAVR procedure needs high expertise. Only cardiologists trained and proficient in it with experienced medical and para-medical support and state-of-the-art technology could produce good results from TAVR, he added.

Aortic valve replacement has been conventionally done by performing a surgery, which involves a high risk for the patient, besides needing a prolonged bed rest for recovery. The novel procedure, TAVR is patient-friendly with excellent results and the patient can recover within two days.

Being a minimally invasive procedure, it is done through a small aperture in the groin, with administering of anesthesia for a limited period. Besides the regular patients, this procedure is a big boon for those in advanced age and with a high risk of surgery and associated complications like lung or kidney disease. Such patients hitherto had to endure the suffering without treatment and TAVR provides them solace.

The centre will initially have Columbia Heart valve therapy experts like Dr Susheel K Kodali, Dr Amisha and others flowing down to Hyderabad to perform these complicated procedures here itself.

Dr Sreenivas Kumar said that the valve therapy treatment in Hyderabad would be done in a structured and programmed way in Hyderabad from here-on and this partnership would present an opportunity for city doctors, nurses and para-medical support staff to learn and get accustomed to this latest procedure.