A team of doctors led by Dr Ashok Seth, Chairman, Fortis Escorts Heart Institute (FEHI), New Delhi performed India’s First Coronary Shockwave Lithotripsy to open up a severely blocked artery in a 67 year-old patient who had recently had a heart attack. The patient had 90% blocked artery which could not be opened by the standard technique balloon angioplasty at extremely high pressures with balloon bursting and it became impossible to open the blockage. Then the novel shockwave balloon was inserted inside the heart artery and sonic pulses delivered to break the calcium in the blockage. After that the blockage opened easily at even low pressures with subsequent stent implantation and a successful procedure. Shockwave Coronary Lithotripsy is a novel procedure which brings hope for those suffering from an advanced form of coronary artery disease (CAD) having angina or heart attack in which the blockage becomes very hard due to deposit of calcium. This happens in 20-25% of the patients undergoing angioplasty and stenting especially those who are old, diabetic, have chronic kidney disease, have long standing blockages or who have undergone previous bypass surgery. The previous techniques used for such hard blockages like ultra-high pressure balloons or rotatory drills which are difficult to use and carry risk of rupturing the artery. Shockwave Coronary Lithotripsy is a major advancement over those techniques.
