Photo: UPMC Team – From left to right: Arun Kanmanthareddy, M.D., structural interventional cardiologist; Chinmay Patel, M.D., director of electrophysiology; and Hemal Gada, M.D., president and interventional cardiologist at the UPMC Heart and Vascular Institute, UPMC in Central Pennsylvania.
Ninety-three-year-old Harrisburg resident Neil Bernstein, recently became the 1,000th patient to undergo the left atrial appendage occlusion (LAAO) procedure at UPMC Harrisburg. Hemal Gada, M.D., interventional cardiologist and president, UPMC Heart and Vascular Institute, UPMC in Central Pa., and his team performed the 1,000th LAAO procedure, which has been available at UPMC in Central Pa. since 2017 to eligible patients with non-valvular atrial fibrillation (AFib) who are at a high risk of stroke.
Strokes linked to AFib often result from blood clots that develop in the heart and can travel to the brain. To lower the risk of stroke, the LAAO procedure is performed to close off the left atrial appendage in the heart, preventing blood clots from forming. The device is implanted by accessing the heart through a vein in the leg using a non-surgical approach, and it changes the internal shape of the heart, making it resistant to clot formation…