Cardiology

Cardiology is a branch of medicine dealing with disorders of the heart as well as parts of the circulatory system. Such disorders generally involve blocked blood vessels, but may also affect the arteries, valves or rhythm of the heart. Coronary diseases include coronary artery disease, structural heart disease (for eg. valvular heart disease), rhythm disorder and heart failure.

Patients who have underlying heart disorder may present with episodes of chest pain, shortness of breath on exertion or at rest, leg swelling, palpitation, or syncopal attack. Those who have sudden onset of chest pain need to seek cardiology treatment as soon as possible in order to rule out sudden heart attack. Other diseases commonly seen by cardiologist are hypertension or high blood pressure and dyslipidemia or abnormal cholesterol level.

Treatment depends on the type and severity of your heart disease. There are different types of heart diseases which can be grouped together according to how they affect the structure or function of the heart. The Cardiology department offers a wide range of preventive care, screening advanced diagnostic tests, invasive and non-invasive treatments, post-operative recovery, cardiovascular rehabilitation and a full range of surgical services.

Surgical procedure of heart disease includes medical therapy or surgical intervention of coronary artery diseases such as coronary angiogram or angioplasty. The procedure inserts a small tube in through a blood vessel in the groin or wrist and rectify the narrowing in the artery that supplies blood to the heart. Device therapy such as pacemakers or loop recorder implantation are minimal invasive surgeries performed to aid the heart in circulating blood and monitoring heart rhythm. Surgery procedures related to coronary arteries available:-

• Complex percutaneous coronary intervention (angioplasty & stenting)
• Diagnostic right and left heart cardiac catheterisations (trans-femoral & trans-radial)
• Fractional Flow Reserve (FFR) pressure wire study
• Intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) coronary imaging
• Optical coherence tomography (OCT) coronary imaging
• Percutaneous embolisation of coronary arterio-venous fistula
• Renal denervation
• Inferior Vena Cava filter insertion
• Pericardiocentesis
• D/C cardioversion
• Intra-aortic balloon pump insertion
• Multi-slice coronary CT scan
• Non-invasive cardiac investigations: Electrocardiogram, Transoesophageal Echocardiogram, Holter recordings, treadmill and pharmacological stress tests, ambulatory blood pressure monitoring, tilt-table testing, metabolic exercise testing, heart-rate variability study