Why You Should Get The Apollo Advanced Heart Check

In 2005, 16 million people in the U.S. had heart disease. Though many treatments are available from statins, to screening, to diet and exercise regimens, this common disease is a killer. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that about every 26 seconds, an American will have a coronary event, and about one every minute will die from one.

The Apollo Advanced Heart Check

The Apollo Advanced Heart Check is a comprehensive set of tests, which assess the state of your cardiovascular system. In addition, this check-up includes consultation with a cardiologist, evaluation of the risk factors and advice on possible lifestyle changes, which will help you lead a healthier life. It gives you a complete picture of your heart. The Check is designed to measure and check all parameters of the heart to find out if any problem exists or if you are at risk of any heart disease.

The advanced heart check has the following features:

Complete Blood Picture:

Testing blood is a very common diagnostic tool used to identify any problem in our body mechanism. Blood test gives you a picture of normal ranges of blood cells and helps us monitor the disorders of organs and their impact. The Hemoglobin, Heamotocrit, RBC and WBC counts, Neutrophils and Eosinophil counts are assessed through the test.

Complete Urine Examination:

Waste products are usually excreted by the kidneys. High levels of proteins, sugars indicate that the kidney functioning is not optimal and it is associated with disorders especially related to heart like diabetes and hypertension. A complete urine examination is conducted to asses these factors.

Serum Creatinine:

This test is also an indicator of how the kidney is functioning.

Fasting Blood Sugar:

Diabetes Mellitus is the most common risk factor for heart diseases. Fasting blood sugar test is done to asses the sugar levels in the body.

Lipid Profile:

The cholesterol levels in the body are assessed by lipid profile test. Cholesterol is a type of fat found in your blood and high levels may lead to coronary artery disease.

Electrocardiogram (ECG):

ECG is used to determine the electrical activity of your heart in a graph format. Any abnormalities like rhythm, blood flow, stroke, heart enlargement are recorded.

Stress Test (TMT):

As the name implies stress test determines how the heart reacts under stress. It involves walking on the treadmill and electrodes are attached to your body that gives the picture of your ECG, blood pressure and heart rate.

Chest X-Ray

The X Ray is performed to give us an image of the heart and lungs. Any enlargement and abnormalities can be assessed by the chest X ray.

Non invasive 320 slice C.T. Angiogram:

You will walk in for your heart CT Scan with Toshiba’s new Aquilon One state-of-the-art imaging equipment, the 320 Slice Computed Tomography Scanner. This is the world’s most advanced and only 320-Slice CT system, There will be visible relief. First, the $1.5 million camera is shaped like a doughnut, as opposed to the MRI toothpaste tube, so you aren't shoved into a claustrophobia chamber for 30 minutes to an hour and asked to stay deathly still.With the 320-slice scanner, you will lie on a sled that moves into the camera lens, which stops at the chest area. Head and legs are unencumbered. Minutes later you are done and on your way, You will also be doubly relieved that you did not have to get a catheter threaded into your artery and stay flat on your backs for six hours of X-rays, as with the traditional, invasive angiogram.Apollo’s Senior Radiologist will be administering the CT Heart Scan. From his point of view there is visual relief as well. Instead of standing over a patient who has a plastic tube in his groin, next to an X-ray machine. He will be sitting in a control room 20 feet away, seeing a clear colorized picture of your heart in 3-D on a computer screen.

It will take a minute and a half to shoot the whole heart, as you are breathing and your heart beating 60 beats per minute, blurring the image. With the 320-slice, the entire surface of the heart can be shot in just half-a second while you hold your breath.Immediately before the heart takes its next beat, the radiologist will have a window of about a sixth of a second when the heart isn't moving. The 320-slice can stop this action, and the picture is broken into 320 pieces, like a loaf of thinly sliced bread. Besides providing a significantly improved image of arteries and veins, the 320 Slice CT scanner throws up in that same half-a-second, accurate images of the valves, the chambers of the heart, its wall and the pericardial sac that surrounds it.

Cardiologists Consultation:

After the tests, x rays and scans have been performed the Apollo Hospital cardiac team will review all your reports and will meet you with their opinion and advice you accordingly.

If you walked in off the street here at home with a doctor's referral, a 320-slice CT angiogram, alone, would cost about $1,500 for two minutes in the scanner. That is, of course, if there even is one in your state. Presently there are less than ten of these in operation in the entire world. With Apollo Health Service it’s free. Then, due to our American system, you will need yet another appointment with your doctor for the results of the scan. At Apollo Health Service you will have all the results the same day.

All this back home here adds up to well over $4,000. During this series of testing and scans here you would be required to make many appointments and go to several different places at different times. Co – payments, insurance company correspondence, if you have any, will wear you out for sure. With Apollo Health Service It’s all free, either for you or your traveling companion.

We’re all heart

Heart valves may get some diseases and it could not perform its function. When it is closed the blood does not move to the heart’s chambers or less bloods travel to the next chamber. Due to this problem, bloods may come out to the lungs and the body. Heart valves failure may cause several problems affecting the whole body system. The problems are stenosis (hardened or stiffness with calcium deposits), regurgitation (insufficiency). To maintain the healthiness of the valves as well cure its problems, heart valve surgery is done by the heart surgeons.

Procedure of Heart Valve Surgery :

Heart valve surgery means repair or replacement of the diseased valves. In the surgery, some valves are repaired or mended to do its work properly. Replacement means removal of the diseased valves by a new valve. The procedures of heart valve surgery are :

• Valve Repairing : In the valve repair surgery, a ring is sewn around the opening of the valve to make tighter. The surgeons may cut the other parts or may separate and shorten it to help the valve open and close right.
• Valve Replacement : Sometimes by mending the valves, it is not possible to cure the unhealthy valve, and then replacement is required to get back its normal function. A prosthetic valve is used to replace. There are two types of prosthetic valves.
• Mechanical valves : These types of valves are made from man-made materials. While heart surgeons’ use this valve, lifetime therapy with an anticoagulant is prescribed to the patient.
• Biological (tissue) valves : The surgeons take biological valves from pig, cow or human donors. The longevity of biological valves is less than the mechanical valves.

However, the choice of mechanical valves or biological valves depend on several factors like the age of the patient, the size of the valve, status of the heart, ability to take an anticoagulant, number of valves needed, etc.

Minimally Heart Valve Surgery :

Minimally heart valve surgery is the most common heart valve surgery. By small incisions in the chest of the heart, minimally invasive surgery is done. This surgery both replaces and repairs the heart valves. This is less painful and there is less possibility of bleeding and infection. In some case robot is used to do the surgery which is called robotic surgery.

The types of minimally heart valve surgery are discussed below :

• Aortic valve surgery
• Mitral valve surgery
• Tricuspid valve surgery
• Atrial septal defect closure, including patent foramen ovale
• Atrioventricular canal defect or atrioventricular septal defect surgery
• Atrial fibrillation surgery
• "Off-pump" coronary artery bypass surgery
• Saphenous vein harvest for coronary artery bypass surgery

Due to updated organ transplantation surgery in India, the foreign health travelers seek India for organ transplantation. Our medical team can guide you to do heart valve surgery under the heart surgeons of Apollo Hospitals, the largest healthcare groups of Asia. One will avail heart valve surgery treatment at an affordable price along with free consultation as well no waiting periods for the surgery. Medical treatments in India are now a global phenomenon.

Bypass Heart Surgery, also known as Coronary Artery Bypass Graft (CABG), is a common type of open heart surgery. Due to the malfunctioning of clogged coronary arteries, the blood flow and oxygen flow block or become slower. So bypass heart surgery create some bypasses, reroutes to improve the blood and oxygen flow to the muscle of the heart.

Who requires a Bypass Heart Surgery ?

It is a treatment for coronary artery disease. In this disease, the clogged coronary that bring blood to heart muscle obstruct the blood flow. The clogging forms due to a plaque (a buildup of fat, cholesterol and other substances). This may obstruct or slow the blood flow causing chest pain and heart attack.

Bypass Heart Surgery Procedure :

In this bypass heart surgery procedure, the surgeons use some healthy segment of blood vessel from other parts of the body to create an alternative route around the blocked portion of the heart. The number of the bypass depends on the number of the blocked arteries. The surgeons take an artery vein from the leg or chest wall. If it is taken from a chest wall, it open end is attached to the coronary artery below the blocked area. If it is taken from a leg, one end is sewn above the blocked area and the other end to the below blocked area.

For most bypass surgery, cardiopulmonary bypass with a pump oxygenator (heart-lung machine) is used which take over the function of the heart. Most surgeons perform also off-pump coronary artery bypass surgery (OPCAB).In case of some patients, OPCAB has the possibility of decreasing intraoperative bleeding, renal complications and postoperative neurological deficits (problems after surgery).

Post Surgery Period of Bypass Heart Surgery :

After surgery, the patient is constantly monitored in a cardiac intensive care unit. For 12 to 24 hours, monitoring devices are used to check the heart rate and blood pressure. Medication is given intravenously to regulate the blood circulation. Usually it takes one week for recovery, though it may differ sometimes. After release from the hospital, some cardiac rehabilitation programme is suggested by the specialists. As stress management is essential for the patient after bypass heart surgery. The doctors suggest to take low cholesterol food and to maintain a healthy lifestyle.

Our medical teams will refer one to the expert heart surgeons of Apollo Hospitals. The most renowned and largest healthcare groups of Asia, Apollo heart centers have all the modern equipments of diagnosis and treatments with qualified and experienced heart specialists. The organ transplantation surgery in India including the Apollo is sought by the foreign travelers. The advantages one will avail in Medical treatments in India under our guidance are affordable treatment, free consultation with the expert and no waiting periods for the treatment.

In the department of Cardiothoracic and Vascular Surgery over 2500 surgeries have been done with the impressive success rate of 99%.It includes some of most complicated coronary artery bypass operations. Along with it surgery for all types of valvular heart disease, infant and neonatal heart diseases, and thoracic and extracranial cerebraovascular operations have been successfully done.

Cardiac Treatment Facilities :

• CABG technique on the beating heart without the use of a heart lung machine coronary artery bypass, with mammary artery and redo bypass surgeries
• Valve repair/ replacement procedures
• Closed cardiac and thoracic operations
• PDA
• ASD
• VSD
• TOF
• Repair of adult coarctation
• Redo Tetralogy
• Fontan type of operations
• DTGA
• Tricuspid atresia
• Coronary arteriovenouus fistula

Facilities Available :

• 3 dedicated cardiac theatres, (computerized monitoring systems, centrifugal pumps, etc.)
• 23 bedded intensive care unit
• 50 specially trained nurses
• 4 experienced physiotherapists

Future Programmes :

• Heart transplant and heart lung transplant
• Homograft programme
• Newer methods of revascularization
• Total artificial heart and left ventricular assist devices

Cardiothoracic Vascular Surgery ICU :

The twenty-three bedded CTVS ICU has a one to one nursing ratio, round the clock. It is equipped with :

• Bedside colour Doppler
• Echocardiography system
• Continuous Oxygen supply
• Infusion pumps
• Defibrillator
• Ventilators
• Invasive as well as non-invasive pressure monitoring systems
• Temporary Pace maker (transdermal as well as transvenous)
• Intra aortic balloon pump
• ABG (Blood Gas machine)
• Electrolytes analysis machine

Cardiology Department is one of the most famous and successful department at Apollo. This department consists of senior Cardiologists who have got there trainings in India and abroad. The department was established in 1996. Since then more than 15000 angiographies and approximately 3000 coronary angioplasties have taken place. There are a number of cardiovascular abnormalities which are treated here with non coronary intervention. Vascular dissection and aneurysm repair also take place with covered stents. Othere things which are performed on a number of patients are Subclavean, iliac, femoral and carotid artery balloon angioplasty and stenting.

Non Surgical closure of Heart Defects :

To close the hole in heart successfully like Atrial Septal defect, small ventricular septal defect or ductus Arteriosus, Button or Amplatzer device or coils are used.

On a young boy of four years who had Patent ductus Atreriosus a non surgical closure technique was used. There are no complications reported till now for the same so the treatment is successful.

Electrophysiologists here use electrophysiology successfully for differetn types of arrhythmias. With the accessory pathway and dual AV nodal pathway Supraventricular can be treated with upto 90% success and even Atrial flutter can also be cured.

The common cause of sudden cardiac death are Venticular tacharrhythmias. There are large number of cases that show immediate death of patients after they get myocardial infarction (heart attack) due to fatal ventricular tachycardias. Many patients are at high risk of sudden cardiac death because of poor functioning of heart whose Ejection Fraction < 40%. EP study investigates such patients and if required the y are provided with a life saving device named implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD). There is a tie between Indraprastha Apollo Hospital and Passaic General Hospital, New Jersey to provide the expensive devices at much lower cost.

For the patients of heart failure and Dilated Cardiomypathy Apollo Hospital has the means for multisided pacing. For Intermittent Atrial Fibrillation recently the hospital had a Bilateral pacing.

In a month approximately 1400-1500 echoes are done and 50 echoes daily. Total number of TMTs has 700-900 per month and on average 25-30 per day. Non-invasive cardiology is one of the busiest department in Apollo hospital. The echoes which take place here include stress echoes, Dobutamine stress echoes, vascular Dopplers, Transoesophageal echoes, Intraoperative TEE and foetal echoes.

To handle so many cases which are received in the hospital, there is sufficient staff and state-of=art facility. As there are daily 25-30 echoes and TMTs done here daily so the outdoor department of the center also remains very busy. The services are very quick and appointments are given for the same day so that the patients don't have to visit the hospital again and again for same problem. Even the waiting time is not more than half an hour which is very rare in west. The printed reports are provided soon after the procedure.