| Taking advantage of the newest technologies to tackle prevailing heart conditions has become a regular feature at the Caribbean Heart Institute (CHI). In fact, just last week, CHI implanted one of the latest pacemaker devices into oneCHI Cardiologist,Dr Mahendra Carpenof its heart failure patients.The patient, a man in his mid-60s, had been suffering from heart failure for sometime but only recently sought cardiac care at CHI.According to Resident Cardiologist, Dr. Mahendra Carpen, the Cardiac Resynchronisation Therapy Device (CRTD), which was implanted on Friday, will help CHI to better monitor this elderly patient with the ultimate goal of helping to improve his quality of life and by extension help to extend his life expectancy.And this would be possible, Dr. Carpen said, because the device implantation process was successful with no complication even as he asserted that “with this device in place, we can help to prolong the life of this patient; he can have a better life at the same time.”Although the patient was discharged the following day, the Cardiologist disclosed that recovery could take a couple of weeks or months. He however noted that the overall evidence is highly in favour of the benefit of the patient.The recent implantation process saw Dr. Carpen being supported by members of his local team including CHI nurses; Eco-cardiographer/Hemodynamic Technician, Jason Solomon and Profusionist/Administrator, Karen Pereira-Debidin. The procedure was also graced by a representative from the Miami, United States Medtronic Company.The process, according to Dr. Carpen, took just under four hours because of its intricacy. “It is a long procedure because it has a lot of steps and has very small room for errors or mistake, so you have to be cautions and make sure everything is right,” said Dr. Carpen, who noted that the patient will be required to undergo follow up treatment during the course of this week.Explaining the process in brief, he disclosed that “the team used a standard sterile procedure. We cleaned the left shoulder, made an incision, found a vein and we had to find two accesses or two veins and from those veins the (CRTD) wires were placed into the heart, one on the right and another, a difficult one, on the left.”On the left, Dr. Carpen disclosed, “that this is where there is a very small opening to a vein that runs behind the heart…it is about half a centimetre in diameter and you have to find that opening and put a wire through it that goes around behind the heart and to the left side.”With the completion of such a procedure, any Cardiologist would be able to continuously monitor the pace of a patient’s heart with a view of administering appropriate treatment to help improve his or her condition.Dr. Carpen also informed that the introduction of the latest device at CHI has in fact allowed Guyana to be the first member state within the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) to utilise the CRTD technology. Although the device is one of the more costly that is available at CHI, it however increases the options available to patients, Dr. Carpen asserted.The Cardiologist explained that the patient who benefited from the CRTD implant had been suffering from advanced heart failure issues similar to what is experienced by many patients that have been seen over the years at CHI. The new technology that has arguably not even been utilised in some developed sections of the world, was described by Dr. Carpen as “a new device and new approach to managing patients…this (type of intervention) has been done before, but the device that we are now using is a complete new piece of equipment not yet used in parts of the world, and I am pretty excited about this,” an elated Dr. Carpen told this publication.The updated CRTD device, which is widely available in York, England, was launched in the Caribbean earlier this year. Dr. Carpen had assisted with that launch but was anxious to note that “we are however the first actually in CARICOM to be able to put it in…It is the newest, highest model of this (CRTD) device that is currently available.” |
