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Friday, 26 September 2014 12:04 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
Head table (from left): Asiri Surgical Hospital Consultant Anesthesiologist Dr. Gayani Senanayake, Asiri Surgical Hospital Consultant/Head of Department of Anesthesiology Dr. Anil Perera, Asiri Surgical Hospital Senior Consultant Cardiothoracic Surgeon Dr. Vivek Gupta, Asiri Group of Hospitals Director (Medical) and Chief Operating Officer Dr. Manjula Karunaratne and Asiri Surgical Hospital Medical Director Dr. Ruwan Senatilleke – Pix by Lasantha Kumara
By Fathima Riznaz Hafi
Taking a giant leap forward from the traditional bypass surgery, Asiri Surgical Hospital now offers a revolutionary procedure – the use of Minimally Invasive Coronary Surgery (MICS) to treat patients with coronary heart disease and blockages. 
MICS overcomes multiple blocks and eliminates the need to cut through the sternum (breastbone). It lowers the risk of post-surgery infection and bleeding, ensures shorter recovery time and faster return to normal activities. The recovery period is four to five days which is a big shift from the six-week rest required after conventional bypass surgery.
Also, conventional bypass surgery requires an incision of eight to ten inches whereas MICS only requires around two to three inches. Highly visible, unpleasant scars and infection of wounds on the chest can now become a thing of the past.
A first of its kind in Sri Lanka, this new procedure requires specialised, state-of-the-art equipment which is imported from abroad and is only available in Asiri Surgical Hospital. MICS involves a lengthy learning curve and mastery takes months or years, even for a veteran surgeon.
Speaking at a press conference at the hospital premises on Wednesday, Asiri Surgical Hospital Senior Consultant Cardiothoracic Surgeon Dr. Gupta said, “We have been carrying out this procedure for the last one year; we are the first in this country to do it, in May 2013. We have performed MICS on a person who was over 100 kg and a 130 kg patient opted for Asiri Surgical over surgery in India in September 2013.
“We performed the first triple sequential multi-artery bypass in Sri Lanka which is very rare in other centres and other parts of the world.” Three vessels of the patient were bypassed during this procedure in September 2014.
During conventional Coronary Arterial Bypass Grafting (CABG) the heart has to be placed in a heart-lung machine which substitutes the patient’s heart and lung functions. Dr. Gupta says, “More than 99% of our work is done on beating hearts – which means we do the bypass while the heart is still working – we do not stop the heart and we do not use the heart-lung machine.”
“While carrying the same risk as the conventional CABG methodology, the new MICS procedure represents a new frontier in heart surgery as it offers patients undergoing bypass surgery numerous benefits and has the potential to soon completely replace the older alternative, especially considering its attraction to diabetic and female patients as the incision is far smaller and far less visible,” he added.
Asiri Surgical Hospital Medical Director Dr. Ruwan Senatilleke said, “Asiri Group of Hospitals has been in the forefront of innovation and delivery of quality healthcare in this country from its inception and going one step further, we are proud to say that we started this minimally invasive coronary surgery a year ago and all this would not have been possible if not for the pioneering efforts of our chief cardiac surgeon Dr. Vivek Gupta.
“Asiri’s association with Dr. Gupta dates back to 2009 when he first performed cardiac surgery here and since then it has been a success story. He is widely acclaimed as one of the best cardiac surgeons in the country if not the region. His numbers and success rates will give testimony for that fact.”
A graduate of one of India’s most prestigious medical schools, Dr. Gupta has performed over 8,000 cardiac surgeries and has spent nearly one-and-a-half decades as a consultant.
