Durable missile metal stents give a leg up

MUMBAI: Ram Sanap, a 62-year-old farmer from Jalna, would have lost his right leg to an infection if he hadn’t made it to JJ Hospital in Byculla in December. Thanks to funding from the government and the latest stent — made from an alloy developed by the US navy while trying to build more robust nose cones for missiles — inserted in an artery in the back of his leg, he is walking again.Ditto with Vikas Wadkar, a 58-year-old driver from Chiplun, whose left leg would pain even while resting. Both men suffer from peripheral artery disease, in which plaque builds up in the arteries carrying blood to the limbs. If they hadn’t undergone stenting, both would have eventually lost their limbs or worse. Under the state government’s Rajiv Gandhi Jeevandayee Arogya Yojana, both got the stent free.
Dr Avinash Gutte from JJ Hospital’s interventional neuro-radiology department who carried out the procedures said, “Both men were in an advanced stage of the disease that began from their thigh artery.” They needed a stent that could bear the heavy activity, bending and flexing that legs perform. “European studies showed the latest Supera stent don’t develop fractures that many previous orthopaedic stents used to,” he added.
A senior doctor who didn’t want to be identified said it’s not easy to deploy these new stents because they come in particular lengths. “There are many new devices to treat peripheral artery disease. Some are in the pipeline, some are available in the West,’’ he said.
Dr Hemant Deshmukh, who heads the interventional radiology department of KEM Hospital, said there was growing recognition of peripheral artery disease in India. “Previously, patients wouldn’t be able to afford a stent, but they can now because of insurance,’’ he said.
Dr Rahul Sheth, the first to use Supera stents in India, said he has used it on 10 patients in the private sector. “These stents are not rigid and take on the shape of the body’s contours.”