The Institute for Cardiac and Advanced Aortic Disorders (ICAAD) at SIMS hospital in Chennai has performed maximum surgeries using the latest and complex Frozen Elephant Truck (FET) procedure on patients suffering from dissecting aortic aneurysm.

Dissecting aortic aneurysm was an emergency condition where the main blood vessel arising from the heart gets torn from the beginning till end, which if left untreated, the mortality rate was one to two per cent every hour for the first 24 hours. The surgical team headed by Dr V V Bashi, Senior Cardiothoracic and Aortic Surgeon, has so far performed 25 such surgeries, after the first procedure was performed ten years back.

'It is a new milestone in treatment of aortic aneurysm and a new record in India', he said, in the presence of those who had underwent this surgeries at SIMS. Talking to reporters about the excellent success rate of the surgery, the cost of which was only one-tenth of the cost in western countries, Dr Bashi said about 24 million in India were suffering from aortic aneurysm.

'More than 50 per cent were detected when the patients come to hospital with other symptoms', he added. Stating that high blood pressure, smoking and genetic problems were the reason for aortic aneurysm, which is common among middle aged people, Dr Bashi said in western world FET procedure was performed using a special FET Graft in a hybrid operation theatre.

'FET graft is not available in India and the cost of setting up a hybrid operation in India will cost around Rs 25 crore. But we modified the technique of surgery using a twin graft and the same procedure is performed in a normal operation theatre
with minor modifications', he said. 'We call this 'The India-genious' way', he added. Stating that the success rate in India was 90 to 95 per cent, Dr Bashi said the worldwide risk rate was five to 15 per cent, but it was just five per cent in India.

Dr Bashi also said that he was training young doctors on this complex procedure so that more people could benefit from this.