Valve Made From Cow's Heart Saves Life Of An 81-Year-Old Woman in India

Doctors in Chennai replaced an 81-year-old woman's leaking heart valve with one made from a cow's heart through a catheter.

The patient from Hyderabad was suffering from heart disease. Eleven years ago, she had undergone valve replacement surgery but her condition worsened in the beginning of the year 2015 and her valves narrowed over time.

The patient complained of severe breathlessness and the test results showed that her replaced aortic valve was narrow. A team of four doctors at the Frontier Lifeline Hospitals in Chennai performed a surgery, which lasted over three hours.

The doctors removed the narrowed valve and replaced it with a new bioprosthetic heart valve that was made from a cow.

The woman had also undergone treatment for breast cancer a few years ago. "She had undergone radiotherapy and this had caused tissue in her chest to get stuck. This made her an extremely high risk case," said, Dr Anantharaman, senior cardiologist who carried out the surgery.

Source: Medindia