KMC doctors set right heart defect through a novel way

MANIPAL: A team of intervention cardiologists led by Professor and Head of the Department of cardiology in Kasturba Hospital (KMC), Manipal, Dr V S Ramchandra and Assistant Professor Dr Padmanabh Kamath performed a novel technique to synchronise blood flow in the heart chambers of patients with block in electric supply to the heart.

This technique, done for the first time in this area, is called VDD pacing. The heart has two upper chambers (atria) and two lower chambers (ventricles).

The right side pumps blood into the lungs. The left side receives purified blood from the lungs and pumps it all throughout the body. An electric stimulus is needed for any muscle to contract.

The heart has also an electric cable system that supplies current to the upper rooms (chambers) first and then the lower rooms.

This delay in current supply to the lower chambers gives time for blood to flow from the upper to the lower chambers before the ventricles pumps out the blood.

In many patients the current cable from the upper to the lower chambers is cut. The treatment consists of putting a wire into the lower chambers to supply electricity from a battery implanted under the skin.

This device is called a pacemaker. To maintain the normal sequence of events between the upper and lower chambers, wires have to be put both into the upper and lower chambers.

In VDD pacing procedure only one wire is put into the lower chamber, but this wire senses the upper chamber current and waits till the blood has emptied into the lower chambers before supplying the electric stimulus to the lower chambers.

This helps to increase the pumping efficiency of the heart and prevents congestion that might happen only when the lower chamber is paced. At the same time two wires need not be put reducing the risk and inconvenience to the patients.

Chief operating officer and medical superintendent of the hospital Dr D P Saraswat said: “With this expertise of the cardiologists and operational standards of KMC Heart Centre, Manipal, patients can expect the care comparable to any cardiology set up in India.”

Dr Saraswat said the commitment of KMC Heart Centre to provide the best of cardiac care to the people of this region has been accomplished, but the centre would strive for continuous improvement of facilities available.

The latest technology of angioplasty using drug eluting stent is also available in the centre.