Aga Khan Hospital Scores Another First Regional Heart Surgery

The new technique of trans-catheter aortic valve implantation (known as TAVI) is only available in a few specialist centers around the world.

This technique also requires a comprehensive team with experts who have internationally recognized experience in both open surgical and minimally invasive interventional techniques.

Dr. Mohamed Jeilan, who led the team that performed the procedure, said that the main advantage of this technique is that it is less invasive and is associated with a faster recovery with patients able to get back to normal functioning much earlier.

This technique was approved for use in the USA only as recently as 2013.

Aga Khan University Hospital Heart and Cancer center is the only center in sub-Saharan Africa outside South Africa which has met with international approval for this technology to be made available.

Many leading world experts have described this new technique as the most important breakthrough in cardiology in the last twenty years.

By Tom Omulo.