Peshawar hospital uses new technology for faster coronary angioplasty.

PESHAWAR -- The public sector Peshawar Institute of Cardiology on Saturday become the country's first hospital to carry out coronary angioplasty using the new technology RotaPro rotational atherectomy procedure, which saves time and delivers better results.

According to Dr Abidullah, head of the cardiology department at the PIC, a team of cardiologists successfully operated on a 60-year-old patient using RotaPro.

He told Dawn that more patients would undergo that procedure, which was meant to treat patients with hard and narrow heart vessels, which caused chest pain and heart attacks.

'In Europe and developing countries, this new technique has been used for around a year. It has produced highly encouraging results and therefore, the PIC introduced it to improve patient care,' he said.

Dr Abidullah of PIC says RotaPro saves time, delivers excellent results

Dr Abidullah said the institute had eight cardiologists, including four trained in the UK, and had so far performed 14,000 angiographies and over 1,400 heart surgeries free of charge under the government's Sehat Card Plus health insurance scheme.

He said RotaPro was introduced and patented by the US-based company Boston Scientific as the latest version on the Rotablation technology to treat the 'hard narrowing' of heart vessels.

'Boston Scientific has chosen us [PIC] as the first centre in Pakistan to launch its Rotapro system in light of our success stories, especially the lowest mortality rate,' he said.

The department head said modern medical technology could be used by a cardiologist single-handedly and that, too, in a short span of time without any pain or difficulty to patients without anaesthesia.

He said RotaPro was successful in shaving off the calcium within coronary arteries.

'This advanced procedure has the minimum complication rate but very positive results,' he said.

Prof Abidullah said the novel technique would benefit patients requiring treatment for calcified coronary lesions.

When contacted, PIC medical director Prof Shahkar Ahmad Shah said the institute had already introduced standing operating procedures for...