A new technique to replace heart valves offers hope to those unfit to undergo open-heart surgery due to old age or other health complications.
The new method called Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement ( TAVI), involves doctors transporting a synthetic valve to the heart through a small incision in the groin.
Three elderly patients with severe blockage of the main blood vessel of the heart (calcified aortic stenosis) have been treated using this technique at Fortis Escorts Heart Institute.
Dr Ashok Seth, chairman of cardiac sciences at the heart institute, said the patients had reported ill to the hospital .
"They were at risk as conventional surgery would have involved opening up the chest and heart and putting patients on cardio-pulmonary bypass. Two of them had earlier undergone bypass surgeries and were frail while a woman also had extreme calcification of aortas making her unfit for surgery," said Seth.
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