New Hope for Heart Failure Patients
Novel Valve Implantation done at PGIMER, Chandigarh.
Recurrent right sided heart failure due to tricuspid valve leakage is an uncommon disease which mainly affects elderly people or people with previous valve surgery. Treatment options for these patients are very limited with open heart surgery and valve replacement being the only option which is generally of very high risk.
In one of the first cases in the country, a team of doctors in Advanced Cardiac Centre, PGIMER, Chandigarh under the guidance of Prof Yash Paul Sharma implanted a novel “TRIC” valve device in a 80 years old patient who was suffering from recurrent heart failure and was too sick to undergo open heart surgery. The patient after this procedure improved significantly and has not had any symptoms of heart failure in his short follow-up.
Talking about the procedure Dr. Himanshu Gupta, Associate Professor, Department of Cardiology, PGIMER explained that this is a procedure where two valves are implanted into the venous inflow system of the heart which helps in decreasing valve leakage and improves forward cardiac output. This valve implantation can be done from percutaneous approach and does not require open heart procedure.
Dr Gupta further said that this therapy has recently been approved for this condition and this was the first case done in the Department of Cardiology, PGI and only a handful of cases have been done around the world. He further said that this kind of procedure can help many more patients with recurrent right sided heart failure due to severe tricuspid regurgitation as this procedure is a low risk procedure with minimal risk of complications but should only be done once patient’s condition does not improve despite optimal medical treatment. Patients who are suitable for this procedure can improve remarkably and can have significant improvement in quality of life and even improved survival.
