United Hospital has conducted a non-surgical minimally invasive procedure, Transcatheter Aortic Valve Implant (TAVI) first time in Bangladesh.

In a patient aged 85 years, United Hospital Cardiac Centre, has conducted country’s first ever Transcatheter Aortic Valve Implant (TAVI) procedure which is a minimally invasive non-surgical procedure done with local anesthesia under mild sedation; this takes only 50-55minutes time.

On 25th July 2017, first time in Bangladesh, the excellent team effort of Chief Cardiologist Dr Momenuzzaman and Chief Cardiac Surgeon Dr Jahangir Kabir, led to a successful TAVI procedure on Dr. Syed Habibur Rahman, a renowned Dental Surgeon of Barisal, who was suffering from Aortic Stenosis. Patient had heart bypass surgery on 2012 in United Hospital; he started having chest pain and breathlessness from 2015 onwards and doctors at United Hospital diagnosed him to be a case of Aortic Stenosis. With his age related complications and comorbidities and previous heart bypass surgery, doctors suggested him to do Aortic Heart Valve Replacement without Open Heart Surgery but in a minimally invasive procedure TAVI; to which he agreed and the procedure was successfully done; patient is doing well now and ready to go home. With Open Heart Surgery Aortic Valve Replacement patient needs to stay in hospital for atleast 7-10days, whereas with TAVI done in Cath Lab, patient can go home in 2-3 days and can resume normal day to day activities in 4-5days.

To have this procedure done in United Hospital Cardiac Centre, a US-based heart device implant team visited United Hospital Cath Lab and Cardiac OT and had one to one session with Cardiology & Cardiac Surgery team, only after the gave clearance, the TAVI procedure could be done here.

For such breakthrough procedure, one hospital should have skilled Consultant team of Cardiology, Cardiac Surgery and Cardiac Anaesthesia along with their skilled team of doctors, nurses, technicians and perfusionists; vis-à-vis a world class ultramodern infrastructure is also required which is available in United Hospital Cardiac Centre; its newly installed third Cath Lab is the first & only iGS 520 Cath lab in the country. With this first time TAVI procedure, patients will be able to live longer with a more active and productive life and they will be able to contribute more in the development of the country.

With development of country’s progress, average life expectancy is also increasing, which will increase age-related diseases in this aged population. Aortic Heart Disease is one of those. The more a person gets aged the more the risk of this disease increases. As a person gets old, calcium deposit increases in heart valve and heart valve movement ability goes down. Since Aortic Valve is a high-pressure (under huge blood flow pressure), as its performance gets diminished, patient starts having symptoms of chest pain, fainting episodes and unbearable increasing cough. It is a deadly disease because these patients are in high mortality risk i.e. when they come to doctors with active symptoms, they survive for another 2-5 years maximum after that.

The only remedy in aortic heart valve replacement, which can be done by open heart surgery, but patients at old age with many other complications like kidney insufficiency, lung problem, or block in heart vessels, might be at severe risk of surgery and anaesthesia. Hence for such patients,Transcatheter Aortic Valve Implantation (TAVI) is a risk-free life-saver done with simple sedation and local anaesthesia in a time span of 50-55 minutes.