How do you take care of your heart, Malaysia? Not so proactive when it comes to Coronary Heart Disease (CHD) apparently, according to the study by University Malaya Medical Centre (UMMC). In conjunction with the World Heart Day this year, UMMC celebrate it with conducting the Love Your Heart Survey 2013 among their 414 patients who suffered from CHD and have undergone Percutaneous Coronary Intervention and Stenting. The survey sought to shed some lights on cardiac risk factors and treatment options as well as patients understanding of these medical issues.
As presented by Prof Dr Wan Azman bin Wan Ahmad, Head of Cardiology for UMMC last week; the survey revealed that about 73 percent of respondents had not even performed regular heart health tests before they had been diagnosed with CHD. Furthermore, 83 percent of respondents had not pro-actively sought out information about coronary stents before their Coronary Angioplasty. This lack of awareness is definitely not a healthy habit that UMMC trying to break. Let's check out what's the other findings from this survey, shall we?
On the other hand, from the total of 328 respondents or almost 80 percent, did not know the type of stents typically used in performing Coronary Angioplasty and unable to identify any of the listed stents in the survey. Only about 56 respondents could identify the Drug Eluting Stent (DES), which is the current standard of care for the treatment of Coronary Artery Disease. Quite an interesting discovery, I'm pretty sure my curiosity will get the best of me if I'm in their shoes~
Next generation stent technologies such as the Dual Therapy Stent (DTS), which addresses the challenges of delayed healing of the Coronary Artery associated with monotherapy DES, and Bioresorbable Vascular Scaffold were completely unfamiliar, with only two and four respondents respectively having heard of it.
“Typically, patients with implanted stents face the risk of Restenosis and Thrombosis. Patients who suffered from Stent Thrombosis (even though the risk is low) usually will present with heart attack and higher risk of death. The development of the DTS is exciting as it combines the best of two existing technologies. It reduces Restenosis using DES and at the same time with Endothelial Progenitor Cell technology, allows for better vessel healing, a combination of efficacy and safety. The result is overall improved performance,” explained Prof Dr Wan Azman bin Wan Ahmad.
Besides that, 80 percent of respondents understood the importance of taking the two anti-platelet drugs, Aspirin and Plavix as prescribed by their doctors, with only 83 respondents saying otherwise. Additionally, the survey also revealed that 66% of respondents were aware that they could suffer from Stent Thrombosis (heart attack) if they failed to take their two anti-platlet drugs, 73% of respondents surveyed knew that stent thrombosis could be fatal and 78% of respondents were interested to find out more information about treatment methods of CHD.
During UMMC Love Your Heart Day, the public not only were given free health checks such as blood sugar, cholesterol and blood pressure tests. There were also talks on heart health, prevention and control by UMMC doctors where the public were given the opportunity to participate in a question and answer session as well. UMMC also took the opportunity to reveals their Cardiac Department extension worth RM1.5 million that will be ready by middle of 2014. UMMC currently
offers various treatments and services such as Peripheral Intervention,
CT Coronary Angiogram, Electrophysiology Study (EPS), Device Implant & Renal Denervation (just to name a few) for their patients.
The talk is really an eye opening experience for me, I learn a lot of new things that I have no idea existed before. Knowing all that now, I'll definitely take a better care of this heart of mine (literally and figuratively) from now on ❤ Do contact UMMC or visit their website page here for more information Till then, stay healthy and Happy World Heart Day everyone, adieu~