Bloodless Heart Surgery with Safety by Dr. S. A. Merchant

Bloodless Heart Surgery 

with Safety and Innovative Devices

Dr. S. A. Merchant

 M. D. Medicine, Bombay University, India
 D.M. Cardiology, Bombay University, India
 D. N. B. Cardiology, National Board Examination, New Delhi, India
 M. B. B. S. Bombay University, India
 Fellow of the Amercian Society of Cardiac,Angiography & Intervention
 Fellow of Interventional Cardiology University of Rouen, France

Mumbai:  Cardiac procedures took an innovative jump when jammed arteries were opened up without surgery by inserting stents by Dr. S.A. Merchant. Dr. S. A. Merchant has been a Consultant Interventional Cardiologist for more than two decades in Mumbai. Complex Interventional Cardiology procedure is performed skillfully by his team in state-of-the-art Cath-Labs with high-tech cardio devices and latest Stent technology. Dr. Merchant’s vision is to Save Human Hearts and hence, human lives by treating them non–surgically.

Dr. Merchant shared his expertise in treating complex heart disease at a press conference. He said that the latest breakthrough in stent technology treated blockages in heart arteries by inserting a soluble stent, where the scaffold dissolved in 12 months and was replaced by normal structural and functional arterial walls. This increases the luminal size of the heart artery by 18%.

Dr. S.A.Merchant further added that males are more prone to heart attacks than women because of stressful lifestyle, erratic work schedule, unhealthy eating habits, and excessive smoking and drinking. But women are also likely to get heart diseases due to smoking, menopause, contraceptive pills, and lack of exercise.

Dr. S.A. Merchant has a passion to share and impart his knowledge about innovative technologies in interventional cardiology with aspiring doctors. He does this through lectures, live demonstrations in the Cath Lab and video recordings, periodic newsletters and online teaching.

Dr. Merchant has the following ‘firsts’ to his name.

Soluble scaffold for complex heart disease

Dr. Merchant is the first Cardiologist in Mumbai to implant the first soluble scaffold stent and now successfully treats complex coronary artery disease with multiple soluble stents. He is credited as the first interventional cardiologist in India and perhaps in the world to implant soluble stent in a 25- year-old patient with massive heart attack, and in an 83-year-old bed-ridden lady for blockage in leg arteries below the knee, with diabetic foot.

Multi-vessel stenting in patients who declined open heart by-pass surgery.

Dr. Merchant has pioneered innovative technology devices and imaging techniques, using medicated stents and soluble scaffold as effective therapies in patients with multi-vessel critical blockages in the heart artery. The procedure is done in technologically advanced cardiac Cath Labs with wide-awake patients, actually participating in the procedure with only an over-night stay in the hospital,no incision or scar and no blood transfusion.

High-risk interventional procedure in patients with low heart pumping, who are not fit for open heart by-pass surgery

Dr. Merchant uses support systems in the CathLab like intra-aortic balloon pump, LV assist device, inotropic support, BIPAP, ventilator support with quick innovative stent technologies to effectively treat patients with the only remaining heart artery, and damaged heart due to previous heart attacks and leaking valves.

Complex coronary artery diseases in patients with anginal chest pain, positive stress test/TMT for ischemia and heart attacks.

The most challenging blockages in heart artery are successfully treated by Dr. Merchant with innovative devices, camera tip, catheters and latest stents. The subset includes complex heart artery blockages like left main, chronic total occlusion, calcified heart artery blockages, tortuous bends, ostial, bifurcation stenosis, blocked bypass grafts.

The latest camera tip catheters to assist the nature and composition of plaques and severity of the blockages in heart arteries to decide the most effective therapy in heart patients

Dr. Merchant has expertise in hi tech. imaging 

techniques like intra vascular ultra sound, fractional flow reserve and optical coherence tomography--all camera based procedures where one can see the plaques and its morphology inside the lumen of the heart artery and know whether the blockage is fatty fibrous calcified or mixed plaque. Depending on this, Dr. Merchant decides upon the exact device to use in order to treat the blockages effectively.

About Dr.S.A. Merchant:Dr S. A. Merchant has been a Consultant Interventional Cardiologist for more than two decades in Mumbai. He is one of the founder-members of Lilavati Hospital and has more than 25 years’ experience in interventional cardiology. Dr. Merchant has a long journey of 25 years in developing Interventional Cardiology from its inception in balloon technology to stents and other innovative devices in the non-surgical treatment of heart disease. His dream was to treat the most complex of heart diseases without performing an open heart surgery. With this vision in mind, he retired from teaching after 12 years as a lecturer in cardiology at the prestigious KEM & GS Medical College.