Cop gets breakthrough treatment

DUBAI A 56-year-old Emirati police officer became the first heart patient to undergo a cutting-edge, breakthrough procedure at a private hospital in Dubai for the treatment of severe calcified coronary artery disease.

Dr Albert Alahmar, interventional cardiologist at the Mediclinic City Hospital, told XPRESS that the patient, Mohammad A. Nasser, a diabetic on dialysis who had suffered a heart attack, was diagnosed with severe coronary artery calcification. But doctors could not do a conventional angioplasty or open heart bypass graft surgery on him because of his condition.

“The only way to treat him was to use rotablation, a cutting-edge technology that could drill through the calcified blockage in the artery through a keyhole in the wrist. Luckily, I had acquired the expertise in the UK and was able to employ the minimally invasive technique on him.”

On the road to recovery now, Nasser said: “I have never felt better in the last 10 years and it’s almost like getting a new life.”