Technology

Kalam-Raju Stent

• The burden on national economy due to cardiac disease is Rs.1500 crores per annum. More than 90% of the consumables used in cardiac procedures are imported and a drain on precious foreign exchange. One of the reason for the very low number of cardiac procedures carried out in India is poor affordability arising from the high cost of imported consumables. It is evident that if cardiac care has to reach all, it has to be made affordable.

• An extensive techno-medical study has been made in 1994 by the Society for Biomedical Technology (SBMT) to bench-mark the different types of stents available in the market, which are broadly classified as tubular and coil stents. Detailed experimental and clinical studies on three stents of the either types have provided the necessary benchmark. This has been made the basis for the development of indigenous stent patented as Kalam-Raju Stent. The benchmarks are schematically shown in the figures below. The Stents indicated are (1) Wiktor, (2) Freedom, and (3) Cordis in Coil type and (4) Palmaz-Schatz, (5) Multi-link, and (6) NIR in tubular type.

• Kalam Raju Stent (K-R stent) led to the crash of prices of imported coronary stents in Indian market by more than 50%. For this historical effort, the CARE Foundation received of the Defense Technology Spin-off Award in 1998.

• KR stents have been used in a number of centers all over the country. 522 implants have been successfully made with K-R stent at CARE Hospital between 1997 and 2001. Coil stents are no more in vogue as newer designs have been developed .

Go Back