In a major medical procedure, an 81-year-old woman in Chennai was given a new lease of life after doctors replaced her leaking heart valve with one made from a cow’s heart through a catheter.

The woman, who had already undergone a valve replacement surgery 11 years ago, began to show symptoms of heart problems early this year. She approached a lot of hospitals but she could not get a positive reply ” said interventional cardiologist Dr R Anantharaman, who performed the surgery.

Usually the open heart surgery is performed by replacing the old valve with the new one. However, considering the woman’s age, doctors decided to perform a minimally invasive procedure.

The procedure was challenging considering the fact that the elderly woman already had a valve replacement surgery and had also undergone treatment for breast cancer a few years ago. “She had undergone radiotherapy and this had caused tissue in her chest to get stuck. This made her an extremely high risk case,” said Dr Anantharaman. The doctor added that the difficulty arose as they had to re-do the valve replacement. “Usually when we are replacing a native valve, we simply remove the old valve and put in a new one. But in her case, we just placed the new valve inside the old one,” he said.

Featured Image – indianews

News Credits – indiatimes

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