Managing your heart better

Durdans Hospital accredited by the Joint Commission International for its outstanding care and facilities set up its flagship facility the Durdans Heart Centre in 1999 with cardiac surgeries commencing in the year 2000. The first of its kind offering unmatched cardiac care, it revolutionised healthcare for the people of Sri Lanka.

Dr. Kesav Dev

Durdans has proven to be a centre of excellence in cardiology, cardiac surgery and cardiac investigative procedures both interventional and non-interventional with over 35,000 procedures completed.

Durdans is also served by some of the best cardiologists and cardiac surgeons, while state-of-the-art equipment enables the hospital to carry out highly successive procedures in this discipline.

The most recent introduction being the revolutionary new generation of interventional X-ray systems, the Phillips AlluraClarity family FD10 with Clarity IQ technology, which includes a comprehensive set of system-wide improvements that virtually ends the trade-off between X-ray dose and image quality and dramatically reduces the X-ray dose typically by about 83%.

Dr. Kesav Dev, the hospital's leading Cardiac Thoracic Surgeon, with more than 8,500 heart related surgeries to his name including numerous Minimally Invasive (Keyhole) surgeries, commenting on the the Durdans Heart Centre said, "Since joining Durdans in 2004, the cardiac team and myself have performed many cardiac bypass surgeries, valve replacements and many more. We also conduct many programs to educate the public, specifically the younger generation on how important it is to take care of their heart with the correct diet, exercise and healthy habits."

Minimally Invasive Cardiac Surgery, also known as MICS CABG (Minimally Invasive Cardiac Surgery/Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting) or The McGinn Technique is heart surgery performed through several small incisions instead of the traditional open-heart surgery. The advantages of this type of surgery as opposed to the traditional kind are less blood loss, reduced post-operative discomfort, faster healing times and lowered risk of infections, as well as eliminating the possibility for deep sternal wound infection or sternal non-union.

This procedure makes heart surgery possible for patients who were previously considered too high risk for traditional surgery due to age or medical history. After a minimally invasive procedure, patients recover more quickly than from sternotomy and suffer fewer complications. Most patients can expect to resume every day activities within a few weeks of their operation.

After surgery, patients are administered an anaesthetic pain pump and drains that will be removed prior to discharge. Patients are encouraged to move around as much as possible after their operation to recover quickly.

When discharged from hospital, patients require no further post-operative assistance.

Dr Dev adds, "Minimally invasive heart surgery is a safe and broadly applicable technique for performing a wide range of complex heart procedures, including single or multiple heart valve procedures, bypass surgery, and congenital heart repairs.

All these procedures can be performed at the technologically advanced Durdans Heart Centre which is well equipped with the medical equipment and highly-skilled staff."