CHENNAI: After a year of fine-tuning their minimally invasive heart surgery technique, Fortis Malar Hospital has formally launched its Minimally Invasive Hybrid Cardiac Surgery (MIHCS) here on Tuesday. The advantage of having heart ailments treated this way, is that not only will the surgery be fractionally shorter, the chest bone and flesh will not have to be cut for the surgeons to conduct the operation.“For close to half a century, heart surgeons have been conducting routine cardiac surgeries in this method.Now with this technique we will be able to offer heart patients the option of not having their chests cut open,” explains Dr K R Balakrishnan, Director - Cardiac Service at Fortis Malar Hospital.Instead, there will only be a small incision made in the side of the body, near the chest (3-4 cm) through which the scope and surgical catheter will be inserted and the surgery conducted.This method will be particularly useful for people who need to undergo coronary bypass grafts, those who require a valve replacement and also for small children who have holes in the heart, “For now, the technique can only be used for select patients, about 40 per cent of the total heart patients, based on their vitals and other factors. Once the technique is perfected even more everyone can be operated on through this minimally invasive procedure,” he added.As part of the surgery, the patient will not be put on a heart-lung machine but will be operated on directly. The cameras scopes even have HD video relay to help surgeons “reconstruct parts of the heart” skilfully. With close to 30 successful surgeries behind them, the team are looking forward to fine tune the technique over the next five years.With a price tag of `1.5 lakh, it is not too much higher than conventional price for a coronary graft, especially since it’s a slice of the future.
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