Robotic heart surgery ray of new hope : Dr Ravi Kumar

Kolkata, Nov 21 (UNI) ''With increasing stress levels, lifestyle diseases, including heart ailments, are on the rise and robot -assisted surgery promises a way out,'' said Dr Ravi Kumar, Director, Institute of Cardio-Vascular disease and Robotic Surgery Centre, Chettinad Health city (CHC), Chennai.

Addressing a press conference here yesterday, globally acclaimed specialist of robot-assisted surgery, Dr Kumar said, ''Heart diseases are on the rise in India and the age of people suffering is reducing everyday, which is alarming trend.'' Elaborating on robot-assisted heart surgery, the leading edge technology surgery at CHC, he said, ''All major heart surgeries in the next five to seven years will be done using robots as it reduces the size of incision and alteration of sites through increased micro-instrument precision.'' ''It ensures minimum loss of blood and tissue damage and comparatively less pain to the patients besides guaranteeing 30 per cent less cost than the regular heart surgery,'' he said adding, ''It is a ray of hope for the heart patients as there are less chances for infection and the stay in the hospital is reduced to half with early return to normal activity by faster recovery with minimal incision.'' He claimed that the CHC was the only centre in Asia which could perform robotic heart valve replacement surgery as the technique is preferred in countries like the US and Germany.

''Instead of cutting through the sternum to reach the heart, the space between the ribs is used to carry out the surgery,'' he explained.

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