M A I N   N E W S

Moga-born doc performs angioplasty on 104-yr-old
Tribune News Service

New Delhi/Moga, May 19
Moga-born renowned cardiac surgeon Dr Purushottam Lal has claimed a world record by performing an angioplasty procedure on a 104-year-old man in a Delhi hospital on Friday. The patient is doing well after the surgery.

A recipient of the Padma Vibhushan and BC Roy National Award, Dr Lal, who chairs Metro Hospital and Heart Institute in Delhi, performed the procedure with stenting on Hari Singh, born in 1909. He has already applied for the record to the Guinness World Records.

Hari Singh, a resident of Dehradun, was admitted to the centre recently with severe chest pain and low blood pressure. He suffered heart failure and kidney dysfunction and was first medically stabilised and put on dialysis due to pressure on the kidneys.

“The patient kept reporting chest discomfort, which necessitated urgent angiography and necessary management. I had performed the first angioplasty with stenting on Hari Singh in 2001. This is the second such procedure,” Dr Lal said. Hari Singh was doing well after the first procedure and even going to his son’s shop in Dehradun fairly regularly.

The patient’s angiography on May 16 showed that two of the three major arteries were blocked from the origin. “The only remaining major artery (LAD) showed calcified critical stenosis (90-95%) at its origin,” said Dr Lal. Because of his recurrent instability, an urgent angioplasty with stent implantation was performed through the left arm.

The eminent cardiologist, also a former member of the Board of Governors of the Medical Council of India (MCI), hails from Patto Hira Singh, a remote village of Nihalsinghwala sub-division in Moga district. He studied up to Class V in the village primary school and then in a high school in Shaina village in Sangrur district. In 1975, he did MBBS from Government Medical College, Amritsar, and then went to the US for further studies.

“The total procedure time lasted less than 10 minutes and a total of 15 cc dye was used to protect his kidneys. The patient has been doing well since the procedure. His life could not have been saved without angioplasty. It was risky to perform surgery on a 104-year old patient, but I went ahead with his family’s permission to save his life,” Dr Lal said, adding that with increasing experience, age of the patient is no bar for such procedures.