The Hindu : New Delhi News : New angioplasty guidelines for heart centres

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Mar 04, 2007
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New Delhi

New Delhi

New angioplasty guidelines for heart centres

Bindu Shajan Perappadan

"Check into centres that provide standardised care"

NEW DELHI: The Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions -- an international professional organisation of interventional cardiologists -- has for the first time discussed and come out with a set of guidelines for health centres doing angioplasty and advised patients going in for angioplasty to now check into centres that provide standardised care, enhanced patient safety and a reliable back-up infrastructure.

The guidelines, accepted by 16 countries including India, will influence the "practice of angioplasty without onsite surgical backup''. They take note of the fact that heart attack is fast emerging as a potential Number One killer and currently over 60,000 angioplasties (mechanical widening of a narrowed / totally obstructed blood vessel) are carried out every year in India of which Delhi records the largest number of procedures.

The guidelines state that only highly skilled interventional cardiologists who have performed more than 500 percutaneous coronary interventions (PCIs) during their career or have an annual case volume of more than 100 PCIs and meet national benchmarks for procedural success and complication rates should consider performing angioplasty without onsite surgical backup.

"Due to the absence of the guideline, the practice of PCI without onsite surgical backup had been growing in this country and overseas. In India, the PCI is being performed without surgical backup in most centres causing concern for high-risk patients,'' said Dr. Ashok Seth, Chairman and Chief Cardiologist at the Max Devki Heart and Vascular Institute. He is also the lone representative from the Asia-Pacific region on the nine-member international team that drafted the guidelines.

According to experts, the need for the new guidelines also arose because of the fact that angioplasty in the recent years has been preferred over emergency bypass surgery.

"Doctors and patients have to understand that these guidelines will not only improve the quality of service but also reduce patient mortality. We will widely circulate the guidelines to all health care centres to follow,'' added Dr. Seth.

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