PIC launches advanced heart, lung treatment

PESHAWAR: The Peshawar Institute of Cardiology (PIC) has started advanced, failed heart/ lung support treatment, called Extra Corporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO), only available in very few cardiac centres in the country.

According to the PIC spokesperson Riffat Anjum, the ECMO programme is being run under the supervision of Dr Abdul Nasir, a cardiac surgeon and assistant professor at the PIC.

Head of the ECMO team, Dr Abdul Nasir, said a patient whose heart or lungs have temporarily failed and runs the risk of dying within hours’ despite being on heart lung machine, can now be kept alive on this particular machine for weeks while the heart and lungs can be rested to recover.