By Elizabeth Kankam-Boadu, GNA
Kumasi, Oct. 23, GNA – A team of
cardiologists at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) in Kumasi, have
successfully performed its maiden heart surgical operations, without opening
the body.
Dr Yaw Adu Boakye, one of the team members
speaking to the Ghana News Agency in Kumasi, said four adults and a nine year
old child, have since last week had different defects, corrected.
This, he touted as a great feat for KATH
since it was the very first time such procedures have been performed
successfully by local cardiologists, he said adding that, the case of the nine
year old hole in heart, may be the first in West Africa.
“Unlike previously, the new advanced technology
which does not involve cutting open the body, has a two-way advantage both for
experts and the patient – these are reduction of the operation time, reduction
of labour, and the reduction of the time the patient stays in hospital, among
others.
“According to him, the patient also enjoys
improved convenience and less discomfort as the painless procedure, is done
under conscious sedation, adding patient can even walk home smiling the next
day,” he added.
Explaining the procedures, he said KATH was
now deploying two different kinds of modern technologies to correct two heart
defects, which are pacemaker implantation in adults with slower heart rhythms
and congenital hole-in-heart (Atrial Septal Defect), in children.
He said people with slower heart rates of
between 30-35, instead of the normal 60 and above, would pass out after any
rigorous activity and would need the implantation of the pace- maker to boost
the heart’s capacity to race at the normal rate.
Dr Adu_Boakye explaining further the procedure
to address the hole- in- heart (Atrial Septal Defect), said it involved passing
a catheter from the groin through the arteries right up to the heart, where an
umbrella-like device fixed at the end of the catheter, locates the hole and
seals it off permanently.
The Cardiologist said the pace-maker
implantation, is also done through the passing of an external tube into the
body. The device is thus implanted with a generator buried under the armpit to
aid the production of normal heart rate.
Dr Adu Boakye said the achievement has been
possible through a Memorandum of Understanding signed between KATH and the
Guandong General Hospital, China, under which the latter would train KATHs
specialist cardiologists in advanced technology in cardio surgery.
Through this collaboration, the Guandong
team of heart surgeons have been visiting KATH periodically to perform heart
operations as a means of handing down the technology.
Dr Adu Boakye said he and another
cardiologist at KATH, were sent to China to receive a year’s training as part
of the deal and was upbeat that, this has contributed a great deal to the
present feat.
GNA
