ILOILO City – The landscape of cardiovascular care in Western Visayas has achieved another major milestone following the successful performance of the region’s first-ever Intravascular Lithotripsy (IVL) at The Medical City Iloilo on July 23.
IVL is a minimally invasive and cutting-edge procedure that uses sound wave pulses — similar to those used to break up kidney stones — to fracture hardened calcium deposits in the arteries of the heart, improving blood flow and enabling safer and more effective stent placement.
The historic procedure was carried out by a collaborative team of specialists led by The Medical City’s interventional cardiologists, Dr. Kristy Garganera-Tugbang (Iloilo) and Dr. James Diaz (Ortigas), along with Dr. Felix Ruzen Fandinola, anesthesiologist, and the skilled staff of the hospital’s Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory.
The patient, a 66-year-old woman with hypertension and a family history of coronary artery disease, was referred by Dr. Regina Elena Bisnar-Regalado after a positive dobutamine stress echocardiogram revealed signs of restricted blood flow to the heart. Further evaluation showed that she had severe three-vessel coronary artery disease, including critical narrowing of the left main coronary artery — a condition that traditionally required open-heart surgery.
Instead, the team performed a high-risk, complex Percutaneous Coronary Intervention (PCI), utilizing Intravascular Ultrasound (IVUS)-optimized stenting and coronary IVL, offering the patient a safer and less invasive alternative to bypass surgery.
With IVL and IVUS technologies now available in Iloilo, patients with complex coronary conditions no longer need to travel to Metro Manila or other regions for advanced interventional procedures. These innovations also promote faster recovery times, shorter hospital stays, and fewer complications for select high-risk patients.
In a region that continues to push the boundaries of medical care, this breakthrough follows closely on the heels of another historic feat: the first-ever awake brain surgery in Western Visayas, successfully performed on July 17 by the surgical team at the Western Visayas Medical Center.
These milestones underscore Western Visayas’ emergence as a hub for advanced medical procedures and its growing capacity to deliver world-class healthcare within the region./PN
