Coronary angioplasty performed on 90-year-old man

Doctors at a city hospital have given a new lease of life to nonagenarian Sardar Sewa Singh,, enabling him to celebrate Guru Purab festival with his family.
Singh had been spending sleepless nights, as he would often wake up at midnight with severe breathlessness. In an attempt to bear the agony, he used to lie down in bed but in vain, as only sitting up would allow him to breathe.
Singh was advised urgent bypass surgery in view of left main disease.
However, the team led by Dr Ajay Kaul, Chairman of Cardiothoracic and Vascular Surgery at BLK Super Speciality Hospital decided not to intervene surgically in view of his age and co-morbidities.

"Singh's bypass surgery carried a very high risk. Coronary angioplasty by interventional cardiology was his only chance of survival," said Kaul.
Singh underwent coronary angioplasty to his left main and LAD artery on November 3, using two drug eluting stents under the back-up cover of anaesthesia and cardiac surgery team.

"Singh had a comfortable sleep next day and went home before Guru Nanak Jayanti.
"It was a challenging assignment. The procedure of angioplasty was performed on awake patient under local anaesthesia which lasted for about 30 minutes, wherein a very fine guide wire is passed into the blocked coronary artery, a balloon props open the block.

A drug eluting stent is deployed at the site of blockage to ensure that artery remains open forever and patient is discharged the very next day," explained Dr Subhash Chandra, Chairman, BLK Centre for Cardiac Sciences who performed the surgery on Singh.
Singh suffered from cardiac asthma when critical blockages in his coronary arteries would result in back flow of blood from heart into lungs. So he was virtually drowned in his own secretions and could not lie down flat, until this fluid was drained out through urination medicines.
He was brought to the hospital in severe breathing distress on October 30.

"His electrocardiography (ECG) was unremarkable to suspect any heart attack and heart's pumping power was not too bad and yet his lungs were flooded with water due to ineffective functioning of heart during episodes of coronary ischemia.
"An angiogram done next day revealed left main artery with 80 per cent blockage with all three coronary arteries significantly blocked as well," said Dr Chandra.