Qualification:
M.D., DM.,D.Sc(Hons)
HON.DIRECTOR

Eminent cardiologist, who has been awarded the prestigious Dr. B.C. Roy award for 1996, started and established angioplasty in India. He also played a major role in introducing and establishing facilities for angioplasty in a wide range of countries in the Asia-Pacific region. In the 11 years since 1986, he has performed 5,000 angioplasties and has thus helped patients who were crippled by heart disease achieve a new quality of life.

ON May 22, over 2,000 interventional cardiology professionals from all over the world watched live from Paris two surgeons perform two complex procedures at Chennai's Apollo Hospitals. The programme, part of the EuroPCR conference, a prestigious annual event where interventional cardiologists, vascular surgeons, radiologists, nurses, technicians and healthcare professionals dealing with interventional cardiology learn current techniques through live demonstrations from around the globe, marked two firsts. One, for the first time ever, a country from the Asia-Pacific region was invited to demonstrate its expertise at the conference.

 Two, the surgical procedures performed by the teams led by Dr. Mathew Samuel Kalarickal, director, interventional cardiology and cardiac catheterisation laboratories, Apollo Hospitals, Chennai, and Dr. Upendra Kaul of Batra Hospital, New Delhi, used the latest-generation sirolimus-eluting stent (stainless steel mesh tube placed to keep the artery open) for the first time in a live demonstration to a global audience, though they have been using the stents on their patients for the past one year.

The two surgical procedures, performed simultaneously, were complex and took nearly four hours to complete. Said Dr. Kalarickal: "The cases were very difficult and we had to change strategies several times." EuroPCR session chairperson John Marker, who was very happy with the demonstrations, said: "The cases beamed from India were excellent and we learnt a lot from them."