Chennai: Doctors at a city hospital have replaced an infected heart valve of an Omani citizen with a homograft aortic valve from brain dead patients.
A homograft is an aortic or pulmonic valve that has been removed from a donated human heart, preserved, antibiotic-treated and frozen under sterile conditions at -70 degrees in liquid nitrogen, a release from Gleneagles Global Health City (GGHC), here, said on Monday.
Doctors from the hospital carried out the procedure on a teacher from Oman who underwent three “complicated heart surgeries to clear the infection in his heart valve that were identified due to an unexplained fever and a dental procedure.”
“Despite these surgeries, he developed recurrent infection around the mechanical valve inside his heart. As an additional complication, he developed ballooning of his aorta due to infection which is known as pseudo aneurysm of the aorta. The multi-disciplinary team of doctors at GGHC evaluated his condition and in view of repeated infection of the mechanical heart valve, which is made of metal and covered with fabric, the team decided to replace his infected heart valve with a homograft aortic valve, it said.
In the first week of September, Hilal underwent a complex and meticulously planned heart surgery for the fourth time.
“The procedure involved cooling down the patient’s body down to 18 C to allow pausing of his blood circulation for eight minutes to open and control his pseudo aortic aneurysm. During this period, where there was no blood flow to his body, his brain was perfused blood by a special tube placed in the carotid artery (selective antegrade cerebral perfusion).”
“The previously infected heart valve was removed and the infection surrounding it was thoroughly cleaned. A new aortic valve (Cryopreserved homograft) was implanted in the centre of the aorta,” the release explained.