Uganda holds CSI Africa annual conference

Over 100 cardiologists and medical practitioners from all over Africa, Germany and the UK recently came together to discuss new developments in catheter-based interventions in the treatment and diagnosis of congenital, structural and valvar heart disease.

The third CSI Africa annual conference was held at the Speke Resort, Munyonyo in Kampala-Uganda for two days (November 25-26). Previous CSI Africa conferences were held in Arusha-Tanzania (2014) and Addis Ababa-Ethiopia (2015).

According to Dr. Sulaiman Lubega, a paediatric cardiologist at the Uganda Heart Institute, Uganda was selected to host the third conference because of the rapid gains it has made in the
field of catheter-based interventions for the diagnosis and treatment of heart diseases.

Catheter-based interventions refer to procedures used in diagnosing and treating heart conditions without opening a person's chest and the heart.

Lubega explains that the procedure involves inserting a catheter (a long, thin, flexible tube) into a blood vessel in the patient's arm, upper thigh or neck and extending it to one's heart.

Movement of the catheter is monitored by radiography.

In Uganda, the procedure can only be done at the heart institute at Mulago Hospital. Lubega notes about 250 patients have undergone the procedure since they started carrying it out four years ago in 2012.

Lubega disclosed that their target is to carry out 100 procedures in 2017 and is positive that they will achieve it given their steady progress.

He explained that catheter interventions offer an attractive alternative to heart surgery. Advantages of cardiac catheterization include:

-    A patient spends a shorter time in hospital, that is about two days after the procedure as opposed to the 10 days patients spend after open heart surgery.

-    Patients also resume their activities earlier than those to undergo open heart surgery

-    At about sh2m cardiac catheterization is cheaper than open heart surgery that costs about sh14m because more people are needed to carry it out.

-    They are not left with chest pain, deformity or scar

-    It involves little risk of death

Lubega added that patients were originally sent to other countries such as India for treatment, adding that the country is now saving a lot of money by patients having such procedures performed at home.

The conference also provided an opportunity for African cardiologists to network with experts from Germany and the UK so as to improve their skills.

At the conference, experts from other countries presented case studies of unusual cases of patients they handled and discussed what they did and the lessons that could be learnt from the way the unusual cases were handled.

In addition, cardiologists also discussed the sterilization and re-use of catheters. This was after acknowledging the fact the for countries that do not have enough resources, such as Uganda, sterilizing and re-using catheters will go a long way in ensuring that many patients get the required treatment.

Doctors were also reminded to be vigilant about protecting themselves against radiography that is used in the catheterization laboratory where the procedures are done.
One of the effects of overexposure to radiography that doctors suffer is loss of hair on the head and other parts of the body, like the legs.

The CSI Africa conference was organised by the CSI Foundation, a not-for-profit organization formed to aid the development of structural, congenital and valvar heart interventions worldwide.