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Recycled US cardiac aids sent to India
Source: Agencies |
November 18, 2010, Thursday
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Print Edition
IMPLANTED cardiac defibrillators removed from American patients due to infection or upgrade are saving lives in India thanks to a US doctor with a big heart.
Rather than discarding the pricey devices when they are removed from the patient's chest, Dr Behzad Pavri, a Philadelphia-based cardiologist, resterilizes them and ships them to India, where they are implanted in indigent patients who could not afford the treatment on their own.
"These are patients who otherwise would have no chance of getting such a device," said Pavri, who presented research on the safety of reusing implanted defibrillators at the annual meeting of the American Heart Association here.
Implantable cardioverter defibrillators, or ICDs, deliver a jolt of electricity to correct life-threatening heart rhythms and cost upwards of US$35,000 (232,508 yuan) each.
"I have stacks and stacks of letters from patients thanking me for basically giving them our trash," Pavri said in an interview at the meeting.
About 250,000 to 300,000 ICDs are implanted each year in patients in the US, Pavri said.
The battery-powered pulse generators, which are the size of a stop-watch, typically remain in patients for five to eight years but are sometimes removed before the end of their life cycle when a patient develops an infection or needs an upgraded model due to a change in health condition.
Rather than discarding the pricey devices when they are removed from the patient's chest, Dr Behzad Pavri, a Philadelphia-based cardiologist, resterilizes them and ships them to India, where they are implanted in indigent patients who could not afford the treatment on their own.
"These are patients who otherwise would have no chance of getting such a device," said Pavri, who presented research on the safety of reusing implanted defibrillators at the annual meeting of the American Heart Association here.
Implantable cardioverter defibrillators, or ICDs, deliver a jolt of electricity to correct life-threatening heart rhythms and cost upwards of US$35,000 (232,508 yuan) each.
"I have stacks and stacks of letters from patients thanking me for basically giving them our trash," Pavri said in an interview at the meeting.
About 250,000 to 300,000 ICDs are implanted each year in patients in the US, Pavri said.
The battery-powered pulse generators, which are the size of a stop-watch, typically remain in patients for five to eight years but are sometimes removed before the end of their life cycle when a patient develops an infection or needs an upgraded model due to a change in health condition.
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