Heart disease continues to be the leading cause of death in the world and there is little talk regarding prevention.
By: Alexander Triana Yanquen
We are commemorating the Month of the Heart in Puerto Rico and this has sent us in the Journal of Medicine and Public Health to be promoters of the second Cardiovascular Symposium: “your heart health in good hands”, an event that included the participation of a panel of experts and interaction with several patients in which complex issues and focused on the prevention of diseases cardiovascular.
From the Cardiovascular Center of Puerto Rico and the Caribbeanan institution that celebrates 30 years serving the Puerto Rican population, on February 15, medical eminences such as the Dr. Iván González Cancelthoracic cardiovascular and heart transplant surgeon, known as “Heart Doctor,” to discuss the great straight that the Center and the population in general have to face this situation that every year claims the lives of millions of people in the world.
According to the doctor, a specialist in coronary interventions, the best way to deal with and prevent cardiac complications is education: “Personally, I think it doesn’t start with us, it doesn’t start here in institutions like the Cardiovascular Center, I think the prevention of the diseases cardiovascular They begin with our childhood and in schools.”
Moments of cultural change, three key points
Dr. González assures that it is necessary to change the culture and this is the moment to make adjustments in the factors that affect the bad habits of the population: “exercise is not part of a education of the individual, the stress in which we live and with the fast life that we have, many times the food that we offer to our children is literally junk food, and as long as those things do not impact, I believe that we are not going to be successful in treating the patients,” he says.
The surgeon emphasizes that the first of the great straight What should be considered in society is that these types of professions are not necessary due to the traumatisms and risks that the interventions they perform represent for the patient, clarifying that “this should be the goal of us as a society, that cardiovascular surgery disappears” .
“Today, the Cardiovascular Center looks at new projects, the number of cases of transplants has dropped because every day all these professionals are more successful people treating their diseases with new alternatives, with new technology”, he details.
He explains that the second point has to do with the organ distribution system, which has changed and hearts are better preserved: “many times sister institutions from the United States come to look for hearts and we don’t have them available for our people,” he says.
Finally, the third point focuses on alternatives “such as the Ventricular Assistance Systems and the Artificial Heart, very expensive systems that require a multidisciplinary team, which we cannot necessarily have available in Puerto Rico.”
He assures that cardiovascular medicine depends on individual health surveillance: “if you have good blood pressure, you are taking the medicines, if you did not take the medicines, you would possibly end up dead with a stroke or a heart that does not work . And we have to emphasize our children and grandchildren, and it is through the educationwhich is the only way we have to transform our society”.
Conditions that bring patients to the cardiovascular surgeon
As if that were not enough, the diseases cardiovascular they continue to be the number one cause of deaths in Puerto Rico, and the population has unhealthy habits, which increases the conditions or risk factors that lead people to undergo surgery or other noble techniques.
Dr. González explained that “the non-practice of healthy lifestyle habits, understood as weight control, nutrition, and at least 20 minutes of exercise 5 times a week, leads to a more prevalent heart disease.”
According to the doctor, the cardiac procedure that is most frequently performed at the Cardiovascular Center of Puerto Rico and the Caribbean is coronary revascularization, which consists of removing a vein from the leg and an artery that goes to the center of the chest. According to the specialist, only in that institution, between 300 and 400 surgical interventions are performed, and adding the cases of myoplasty, they exceed between 800 – 900 surgeries per year.
He adds that “we have performed 175 transplants in a total of 24 years with extraordinary results.”
Said factors, he comments, are those that have determined that the diseases cardiovascular “continue to be, to some extent, endemic”.
Immediate challenges at the Cardiovascular Center level
Dr. González assures that the straight of the Cardiovascular Center are in general the same as those of the Puerto Rican Society of Cardiology: “we need a greater number of doctors, a greater number of professionals, more nurses, more therapists, more professionals allied to health; we need them to be educated, we need to improve the economic conditions of these compañeros in such a way that they are encouraged to return to Puerto Rico.”
It is no secret to anyone that a crisis called “La Fuga” is taking place in Puerto Rico, and this is a matter of concern for the community. In addition, the doctor clarifies that every day the population is more “aging” and to the extent that the Puerto Rican community ages “the number of professionals that are needed also increases. not only of cardiologybut medicine in general, and people who help us, professions that are no longer so attractive, but that are necessary every day because following all, who is going to take care of us?
The Cardiovascular Center of Puerto Rico and the Caribbean and its 30-year work
The institution opened its doors in August 1992, and today it has impacted the lives of more than half a million patients. “It is considered the only comprehensive multidisciplinary care institution in diseases cardiovascularwhere patients have been operated on from one hour of birth to 90 years of age”, says Dr. González.
The Center has been revolutionizing and impacting the lives of people on the island with its different programs such as: pediatric cardiovascular surgery, the development of the specialty of diseases adult congenital, cardiology clinic, the Structural Medicine program, among others, in which advances have allowed these professionals to contribute to the benefit of the island community.
“Today there are thousands of patients who survived these interventions when they were one day old, who today are adults who contribute to our society, but still need cardiovascular care,” says the surgeon, referring to the specialty of diseases adult congenital.
As regards the cardiology clinic, ensures that “many times it is the first level of entry of patients to cardiovascular medicine”, and highlights the work of professionals focused on professionals who study and treat electrical disorders of the heart, electrophysiologists.
In addition, Dr. González comments that the Center has a great multidisciplinary team willing to provide a quality service and with the best technology available to them.
“To the extent that there are a series of surgeries, there are a series of therapeutic alternatives within surgery; the best known of them are: coronary transplantation, coronary valve replacement, the correction of heart defects, and ultimately, following the alternatives run out and in those who are candidates, there is heart transplantation”, he maintained.
“Little by little, technology has been growing, it has been changing and it presents a great challenge for Puerto Rican society because following all they are very expensive therapies, very expensive technology in a country that the reality is that we are a small island, a small country and we are still very poor”, he concludes.
