First successful MitraClip procedure done at SSB Hospital, Faridabad

New Delhi: A 75-year-old man was admitted in SSB heart hospital with heart failure due to severe leakage of Mitral valve (valve between left ventricle and left atrium). Most of his blood from left ventricle instead of going into circulation was leaking back into left atrium causing pooling of blood in lungs.

This resulted in extreme breathlessness and tiredness and made him very sick. He also had lot of other comorbidities like diabetes, paralysis, Gilbert syndrome, blockage in heart & leg arteries and irregular heart beating called atrial fibrillation. All these were well under control with medical treatment.

However, his mitral valve leakage didn’t respond to medicines. His life was miserable due to severe leakage of mitral valve. He was having breathlessness even on lying down. Due to poor health condition, he was found unfit for surgical mitral valve replacement or repair. There was no hope for such patients in the past but now a novel catheter based non-surgical technique called Mitra clip has become a life saver for such patients. It was introduced in world few years back and has recently become available in India as well.

This patient agreed for this expensive procedure costing around Rs 35 lac. Successful MitraClip repair of leaking valve through a tiny puncture in right thigh vein was done.

MitraClip significantly reduced the valve leakage. MitraClip was passed through a catheter placed in left atrium to stich both leaflets of mitral valve together in the middle. Patient improved immediately after the procedure. The entire procedure was done using live 4D transesophageal Echo imaging of Mitral valve.

SSB hospital Faridabad with its expert team of doctors and most advanced 4D TEE Echo machine is the first hospital in Faridabad to use this novel technique of MitraClip successfully.

Dr S S Bansal senior cardiologist of the hospital said, “We are very happy that our patient’s life threatening valve leakage got resolved by MitraClip. He further said most advanced 4 D TEE ECHO machine is required for precision in such procedure. SSB hospital has such advance equipments and technology available in the hospital. Only problem is that MitraClip itself costs around 30 lac which most of our patients cannot afford. We hope that cost will come down soon and more and more patients of severe mitral valve leakage who are unfit for valve surgery will be able to live long with good quality of life with MitraClip.