ASTANA – Cardiac surgeon and Chairman of the National Research Cardiac Surgery Centre (NRCSC) Yury Pya performed breakthrough surgery Feb. 28, introducing the Asis device for the first time in cardiac surgery. The operation was performed during a master class for colleagues from Germany, Turkey, Serbia, Poland and Italy.
“For the first time in the world these new devices were implanted in Kazakhstan. We had undergone a specific American expertise and were permitted to go through a certain drive, which was attended by 10 leading centres in the world, including ours. We have demonstrated very good results. Now, foreign specialists come to us to learn; they requested to come to us and we agreed,” said First Deputy Chairman of the Board of NRCSC Makhabbat Bekbossynova in an interview with the Khabar TV.
According to the NRCSC press service, Kazakh cardiac surgeons have successfully performed over 150 surgeries in the past five years on artificial heart ventricle implantation and transplantation of donor organs. Such a successful run couldn’t have gone unnoticed by foreign experts.
“For me, it’s really a new experience of implantation of such a complex device as Heart Made 3. In my hospital in Germany, I had not yet implanted devices of the third generation. Today, we have the opportunity to adopt this experience from the Kazakhstan specialists,”German cardiac surgeon Christian Chelensak told the Khabar TV.
Asis is an artificial ventricle that acts as body support. Thanks to the device, an individual can wait for transplantation surgery for years and in some cases even live with it for the rest of his or her life.
“I had a feeling that something miraculous was going to happen on [my] 20th [birthday] and it did. On my birthday I received a [phone] call from doctors with some great news. I couldn’t even react normally and express my happiness at that moment,” said Askhat Kalekeshev in an interview with the Khabar TV.
Kalekeshev’s life was saved by a special quota provided by the Kazakh government. One transplantation costs 25 million tenge (US$134,662), while a surgery on an artificial heart costs 40 million tenge (US$215,459). Under the state quota, these operations are performed free of charge. At present, there are about 150 people waiting for their chance to be saved.
