PGIMER Cardiologist received the best-case award for TAVI operation
The glory of PGIMER glittered at the pinnacle when one of its faculty from the Department of Cardiology was felicitated for the best-case award presentation at a recently concluded conference held at Mumbai from 1st -3rd September 2023. The annual conference “India Valves 2023” which was attended by about 900 attendees and faculty members addressed various aspects of percutaneous valve replacement therapy and its advancement in the 3 days meeting. It bestowed the best-case award to Prof. Dr. Rajesh Vijayvergiya for his presentation about a complex Transcatheter Aortic Valve Implantation (TAVI) operation.
Prof. Vijayvergiya commented that the case was related to a 75-year-old male with critical aortic valve stenosis/blockage with severe calcium deposits, which was successfully treated with a TAVI procedure at the Advanced Cardiac Centre (ACC) of PGI, Chandigarh. TAVI is a minimally invasive operation in which an artificial aortic valve crimped on a delivery catheter is passed through the groin artery to the heart for its implantation. Following the valve implantation, the delivery catheter is removed from the groin to complete the procedure. Briefing about this complex TAVI case, Prof Vijayvergiya commented that during the procedure, the patient had an unusual complication of abrupt total occlusion of the left main coronary artery of the heart. As the condition was very critical and rapidly deteriorating, an immediate emergency coronary angioplasty and stenting of the occluded left main coronary artery was performed. The team’s efforts paid off and the patient recovered well. He was discharged on 3rd day of the operation and had asymptomatic 6-months of follow-up.
The case was discussed in detail by the experts during the conference and highly appreciated the timely and coordinated team efforts to save the life of the patient. Prof. Vijayvergiya said that this award and recognition is owned by his entire team which includes Dr. Basant Kumar, Associate Professor-Cardiology, Dr Sunder Negi- Associate Professor of anaesthesia, resident doctors of Cardiology and Anaesthesia, and the whole team of technical and nursing staff present during the operation, who left no stone unturned to manage the patient in the nick of time.
