High-tech treatment at ‘Heart and Brain’ helped 83-year-old patient return to his normal lifestyle

A multidisciplinary team of invasive cardiologists and cardiac surgeons at ‘Heart and Brain’ helped an 83-year-old patient from Gabrovo, admitted to the hospital in Pleven with serious narrowing of the heart vessels, to lead a normal life again. The highly theological treatment applied gives a chance to people who otherwise would not endure open heart surgery, informed the head of the department of invasive cardiology – Dr. Pavlin Pavlov.

The 83-year-old man was admitted to the hospital with complaints of shortness of breath and chest pain when performing minimal physical effort. The symptoms had been progressively increasing, and over the past month had also limited his ability to self-care. The situation became a problem for him and the patient’s family. In the tests performed at ,Heart and Brain’, the specialists found that the man had serious narrowing of the heart vessels, with massive calcium deposits that made it impossible to implant a stent. The patient also had a narrowed aortic valve.

“The usual method of treatment for these diseases is surgery, but our patient’s disabled condition and advanced age make such surgery high-risk. Therefore, after analyzing the situation together with prof. Iana Simova – Head of the Cardiology Clinic, and Dr. Yordan Krasnaliev – Head of the Cardiac Surgery Clinic, we made the decision to apply a bloodless method of treatment, which is more sparing for the patient, but therefore technically more difficult. Stents were gradually implanted in the vessels of the heart using a rotabulator – the high-tech device is used in many hardened arteries and is the only alternative for their treatment. In a second stage, we treated the narrowed heart valve using the TAVI method, where the valve is introduced to the heart through the leg artery, using a small incision,” Dr Pavlov explained about the treatment process.

The patient was discharged on the third day after the procedure with improvement, no shortness of breath and able to return to his normal lifestyle.