Chennai: Two weeks ago, surgeons flipped the switch on a device in the operating room at Madras Medical Mission to save a 42-year-old man from heart failure and death. On Thursday, moving the patient out of the intensive care unit, doctors said the left ventricular assist device is at least 35% less expensive, more efficient and has an advanced tech that reduces the chances of infection. The patient, whose name was withheld, suffered a massive heart attack that damaged his cardiac muscle, leaving him breathless, in pain and dependent on drugs. Soon after being moved into the emergency room in the first week of March, doctors put him on an intra-aortic balloon pump — a catheter-based device inserted into the aorta that takes over the heart function and eases its pumping workload. “It was a temporary measure. But he did not respond well to this. His blood pressure, saturation and perfusion remained low. He was on a non-invasive ventilator,” said the hospital’s director of cardiology, Dr Ajit Mullasari. Kidney failure compounded his crisis. While cardiologists say they would not be able to do an angioplasty as his blood vessels were weak, surgeons ruled out bypass, stating it was high-risk. “We could not put him on ECMO as it would mean a long-term wait in ICU. Heart transplant was not an option because getting an organ would take time,” said the director of heart transplants, Dr Vijit Cherian.
