New heart procedure to correct abnormal blood flow

By Standard Correspondent

Aga Khan University Hospital has carried out the balloon pulmonary valvuloplasty procedure, a first in Kenya.

The non-surgical process treats pulmonic stenosis — obstruction of normal blood flow in the pulmonary arterial system.

"There are four valves in the heart — aortic, pulmonary, mitral and tricuspid. The valves open and close to regulate blood flow from one chamber to the other and are vital to the efficient functioning of the heart.

"Pulmonic Stenosis causes reduced opening of the pulmonary valve leading to increased pressure build up in the heart. Overtime this causes the heart muscle to work harder and may eventually fail.

The condition is normally detected and treated in childhood by stretching open the tight pulmonic valve by a balloon. Adults presenting with this condition is not very common," says Harun A Otieno, an interventional cardiologist at Aga Khan Hospital who assisted Neil Brass, an interventional cardiologist at the Royal Alexander Hospital in Canada to perform the procedure. But if the condition is severe open-heart surgery is necessary.

Narrow valves

Balloon pulmonary valvuloplasty treatment is a minimal invasive procedure used to open the narrowed pulmonary valves and improve blood flow. A thin tube (catheter) with a small-deflated balloon at its tip is inserted through the patient’s skin in the groin area into a blood vessel then threaded up to the narrowed heart valve.

The balloon is inflated to stretch the valve open and relieve the obstruction. The hospitals’ cardiologists are working with doctors from the Royal Alexandra Hospital and University of Alberta, Canada to develop the first radial arterial access laboratory in the region

The hospital expects to have a second cardiac catheterisation laboratory and comprehensive cardiac surgery operating theatre and intensive care unit in 2010.