New mitral clip offers a way out for elderly heart patients

Four senior citizens, who were declared high risk for heart surgery, were treated for their condition and are now carrying on with their daily activities.

The patients were treated at Apollo Hospitals using minimally invasive procedures. The hospital’s senior interventional cardiologist Sai Satish said the patients suffered from malfunction of their mitral valve. The valve monitors the flow of blood from the left atrium to the ventricle.

Sometimes, the valve does not close properly, resulting in the blood not reaching the ventricle. Instead, it is pumped into the lungs. When this happens, people get choked and cannot even walk.

Dr. Sai said when this happens in elderly patients, surgery is ruled out and such patients suffer heart failure. In western countries, a clip is used to enable the valve continue its function. The clip is implanted through a minimally invasive procedure. The therapy is used to repair the leaking mitral valve and has proved to be a lifesaver, he said. The hospital recently performed four such back-to-back procedures in elderly patients in their late 70s and 80s. All of them returned home within a few days and were independent, he said. In India, an estimated 4.6 million people might have suffered heart failure, he said.

Suneeta Reddy, managing director, said it was important to recognise the need for the procedure. The hospital had so far done 13 mitral clip procedures, the oldest being an 88-year-old man, she said. Hospital vice-chairman Preetha Reddy attributed the success of the procedures to “the highest level of team work”. She said in the past year, “we have shown that we are as good as any hospital in the world”.

Apollo Hospitals group chairman Prathap C. Reddy said: “With the MitraClip, we are able to treat patients with severe mitral regurgitation, who are at prohibitive surgical risk, and offer them a second lease of life. We are proud that Apollo Hospitals is among the select few hospitals in India that is accredited to perform the MitraClip procedure for these heart failure patients.”