Apollo Hospitals organized a Chronic Total Occlusion (CTO) workshop in the presence of world-renowned Cardiologist Dr Tomohiko Teramoto, Chief Director at the Cardiovascular Medicine, Ichinomiya Nishi Hospital, Ichinomiya, Aichi, Japan.

The workshop was attended by 50 doctors including 30 cardiologists in which advance techniques in Interventional cardiology were discussed. Dr Tomohiko Teramoto is one of the pioneers in the field of complex coronary intervention, who has successfully performed several thousands of complex coronary interventions and trained several cardiologists in such procedure. CTO occurs when the coronary artery is completely blocked with fatty deposits inside its walls for more than three months causing chest pain and breathlessness. These blocks are made up of hardened tissues that are difficult to cross using routine guidewires and balloon catheters.
 

Worldwide CTO is considered the last resort in cardiac intervention procedures. The success rate of an angioplasty procedure in such cases depends upon specialized training, experience, and innovative devices designed specifically for CTO. The event demonstrated the latest equipment used in the most skillful way to treat coronary artery disease. Presenting a couple of recent successful procedures, Dr Harikrishnan Parthasarathy, Senior Consultant Interventional Cardiologist, Apollo Hospital told reporters that “Coronary artery disease is an epidemic and there is a worrying increase in the younger population in India."

'This is mainly due to improper lifestyle and bad food habits. Drug-eluting stents have revolutionized coronary artery disease treatment and outcomes are comparable to bypass surgery with reduced risk to life'', he said. ''We have worked in collaboration with the doctors from Japan in various cases for successfully treating such difficult blocks'', he said, offering a ray of hope for patients with such ailments.