Pakistan’s first Beating Heart Coronary Artery surgery performed at RIC

Lahore: The Rawalpindi Institute of Cardiology (RIC) has achieved a milestone by successfully performing Pakistan’s first Multivessel Minimally Invasive Beating Heart Coronary Artery surgery on a patient.

For such kind of surgeries, RIC Executive Director General Azhar Kayani had hired the services of Dr Humayun Iqbal (cardiac surgeon).

Now, he is available for providing the most modern/advanced cardiac surgery procedures to the general population, which have started been successfully in the RIC.

The patient had recovered very well and being looked after in the routine follow‑up clinic.

The patient was very pleased with his surgery because his chest/central bone (Sternum) was not cut open and with just a few centimeter scar on the left side of his chest.

The procedure was done completely free of cost, surgeon or the institution did not charge a paisa and all equipment costs were paid by the government.

In the UK, the same procedure would have cost the patient about £25000‑30000 (about Rs 3 million to Rs 4 million).

It is important to note that this type of surgery i‑e Multivessel MICAS, is being performed in very few centers of the world and most of them perform only single vessel graftings without sternotomy (cutting the central chest bone) and use expensive equipment, including robots to do this surgery.

With his expertise, Dr Humayun Iqbal has performed the multivessel coronary artery grafting with conventional instruments, so that it could be offered free of cost (for those individuals, who could not afford) or at very low cost to the masses in Rawalpindi Institute of Cardiology, the press release added.

Dr Iqbal worked in the United Kingdom with experience of over 10 years in the world’s leading cardiac surgery centers like Papworth Hospital Cambridge, Harefield Hospital London and John Radcliffe Hospital Oxford. He had successfully performed minimally invasive cardiac and lung surgery procedures there.

Dr Humayun Iqbal has been struck off for molesting two junior colleagues. At the General Medical Council in Manchester Iqbal of Ponteland, Newcastle denied wrongdoing but was found guilty of misconduct charges by a fitness to practise panel.

Chairman Dr Anthony Morgan told him: ‘Whilst the extent of the physical assault was limited, it occurred on each occasion, during a teaching situation with a junior colleague that you both engineered and exploited.

Dr Humayun Iqbal also rendered his services to PML-N chief PM Nawaz Sharif at Hospital in London .