Web India123
03 April 2010
Pune, India

A city–based multi–speciality hospital today became the first in the country to introduce the Intravascular Ultrasound (IVUS) system that helps in accurately locating the blocks in the blood supplied to the heart.

Addressing the media, Dr Vivek Limaye, Chairman of Nandadeep hospital, said the IVUS system is used world over to locate conronary artery block. The technology, however, was not adequately known in India. Nandadeep Hospital is the first not only in the city, but in the country to install and activate an IVUS system at its Fergusson College Road campus, he claimed.

Dr Limaye, while elaborating about the latest technology machine, said, “IVUS system is the world’s most advanced technology that makes it possible to reach the interiors of arteries to identify blockages. Locating blocks accurately is critical to determine the treatment to be administered to the patient and to decide whether an angioplasty or bypass surgery is necessary or not.” The IVUS system is a technology that overcomes all the shortcomings of the traditional examination methods. In IVUS, a special probe is used to locate the arterial block, he said. “In routine angiography, 100 ml of a speciality dye is injected into the artery to measure the extent of blockage. This dye is later released by the body through normal urination,” he said. IVUS uses only 15ml of this dye, thereby reducing significantly the possibility of side effects”, said the well–known cardiologist, Dr Aniruddha Chandorkar.

This facility will be of great importance to patients not in Pune alone, but also to areas in the close vicinity including Mumbai, Satara, Kolhapur, Sangli, Nashik, Aurangabad and in fact the entire Maharashtra,” said Dr Vimala Limaye, Director of Nandadeep Hospital.