Heart Centre

Heart Centre

Would you trust your heart to anyone else?

Nawaloka Heart Center is renowned to be the most trusted place for matters of the heart. We provide comprehensive cardiac care from state-of-the art Heart Screening Packages to Bypass Surgery. Trust us with your heart and we will take good care of it.

The Most Affordable Heart Surgery Packages in Sri Lanka

  • Coronary angiogram and Stenting
  • Key hole Bypass Surgery (Without opening chest)
  • Bypass Surgery (Open chest)
  • Implantation of Pacemaker
  • Other Cardiac Related Treatments and Procedures
Angiography

Cardiac Catheterization is for patients with heart disease because it's one of the most useful and accurate test for diagnosing heart problems. It can detect

  • Where arteries are narrowed or blocked
  • The blood pressure inside the heart
  • The amount of oxygen in the blood

How it is done.

First the patient will have a consultation with the Cardiologist who will perform the procedure. The doctor will explain in detail about the procedures how it is done and its risks.

Cardiac Catheterization is relatively safe. Still there are small risks (less than one person in 250 procedures) like bleeding, infection , allergic reaction to the dye, damage to blood vessels, or kidney failure associated with the procedure. In an average patients, the risks are severe complications such as stroke, heart attack and a death on one person in 1,000 procedures.

Hospital stay is limited to 24 hours. 

Most of the patients are conscious during the procedure.

Once inside the Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory, you will be transferred to the Cardiac Catheterization table. Cardiac Catheterization is done through the artery in the groin area or wrist. Your groin area and or arm will be cleansed and shaved. You will then be covered with sterile drapes. Next the doctor will anesthetize the area with one or two injections. After that, a small straw sixed tube ( called a sheath) will be inserted into the artery in your groin or arm. A special iodine based X-ray dye is injected into the left main coronary artery and its branches. As the dye is injected, X-rays take pictures of the arteries. The X-ray camera is rotated or moved around the patients to give different views of the coronary arteries. Most patients do not feel anything as dye is injected into the coronary arteries. 

After pictures of the coronary arteries are obtained ( or sometimes before) , another special catheter is threaded into the heart's left ventricle. Then dye is injected into the left ventricle, allowing the doctors to assess how well it's pumping blood. This picture ( a ventriculogram) also can show if one of the heart valves has become "leaky".

The entire catheterization can take as little as 20 minutes or sometimes more than an hour. The time it takes depends on what measurements are needed during the catheterization and other factors related to your heart's particular anatomy. 


After the Cardiac Catheterization

After the procedure, the sheaths that have been placed in your groin or arm will be removed. A nurse or other cath lab team member will compress the puncture area for a time to help the small hole in the artery to close ( form a clot). Then you will have to rest for a few hours to ensure the small hole stays sealed. A special dressing will be done on the groin area or arm at the same time. 

Most of the patients can go home next day after the procedure. Because of the invasive procedure and may have been given medicine to relax you, plan on having someone else drive you home.

Following the procedure, the puncture area in your groin may be a little tender. There may be a small, swollen area for a day or two. This may be normal, but if there is a tenderness , pain, swelling or bleeding talk to your cardiologist. It is important to make sure that nothing needs further evaluation. In rare cases the artery does not completely seal or an infection may develop.


Heart Surgeries


PDA - Patent Ductus Arteriosus

There is a communication between the aorta and pulmonary artery in a child at birth which supplies oxygen to the brain when the child is inside the mother. Normally at birth this duct ( communication) closes automatically, but in some babies this does not happen. So an operation is needed to close this duct. It is done through the chest wall ( Thoracotomy).

BT Shunt - Blalock Taussig Shunt

Some children do not have a fully developed pulmonary artery ( this supplies blood to the lungs for oxygenation) so the baby does not have enough oxygen in the blood and the blood is blue ( blue baby). The surgeon can sew a tube into the arteries of the heart to supply blood to the lungs and the baby becomes pink.

CABG - Coronary Artery Bypass Grafts.

Veins from leg, internal mammary artery from the inside of the chest ( mainly from left and sometimes from right) and radial artery from the forearm used to bypass the blocked areas of the coronary arteries of the heart. This can be done using the heart-lung machine ( on pump - heart stopped) or on the beating heart ( off-pump) using an immobilization device called the octopus device.

AVR - Aortic Valve Replacement

The aortic valve, which is the main valve through which blood goes out of the heart to the body, can get narrowed ( Arotic Stenosis) or does not close fully ( Aortic Incompetence / regurgitation). The defective valve is removed and replaced with an artificial valve, which maybe made of metal or animal tissue.

MVR - Mitral Valve Replacement

The mitral valve is another valve in the heart that can undergo the same problems like the aortic valve and needs to be replaced just like mentioned in the AVR.

DVR- Double Valve Replacement

In some patients both the Aortic and Mitral valves are diseased and needs replacement at the same time. This patient will need 2 valves

TVR - Triple Valve Replacement

Very rarely three valves needs to be replaced, In addition to the Aortic and Mitral, the Tricuspid valves needs replacing.There are two types of artificial valves. The Mechanical (metal) valve and the Tissue ( made from animals) valve. The choice of valve depends on the patient%u2019s and surgeon's preference.

The conditions below are called congenital defects as they are present at birth

ASD - Atrial Septal Defect

The was between the right and left side of the heart at the atrial level is defective. Commonly called hole-in-heart. An artificial patch or a piece of patient’s, own tissue is used to close this hole.

VSD-Ventricular Septal Defect.

As the ASD but this defect is in the ventricular part of the heart, with a hole between the left and right sides. It is closed in the same way.

Fallots Tetralogy

This condition has four defects; small pulmonary artery, VSD, large aorta and right ventricular thickening. Surgery is complex and corrects all these defects in one operation.

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