About Department

The department of Cardiology was amongst the first departments established in late 1987. The initial mentorship and guidance by Prof PS Bidwai (who joined as Professor and Head in 1989) followed by Prof Savitri Srivastava (who joined as Professor and Head in 1992) made the department what it is today, being counted amongst the leaders in the country and abroad.

Currently, the department has a whole range of facilities for diagnosing and treating all varieties of cardiac diseases. The department has three cardiac catheterization laboratories (including a biplane cath lab) and is amongst the top 10 large volume centers in the country actively involved in both pediatric and adult cardiac interventional care.  The diverse spectrum of cases performed include coronary interventions, balloon valvuloplasties, structural heart disease interventions (percutaneous valve implantation, alcohol septal ablation), electrophysiological studies with radiofrequency ablation, cardiac implantable electronic device procedures, cardiac interventions for congenital heart disease and peripheral vascular diseases.

The department is also credited with various firsts in the state of Uttar Pradesh eg. the first mitral valve balloon dilation (MVBD) procedure, first coil occlusion of patent ductus arterious (PDA), first radiofrequency ablation (RFA), first coronary angioplasty and first trans-aortic valve implantation (TAVI).  The Cardiology department at Sanjay Gandhi PGIMS is recognized nationally and internationally for complex angioplasty procedures especially chronic total occlusion (CTO) and complex high-risk indicated percutaenous coronary interventions (CHIP-PCI).

The focus on clinical and interventional work and recognition of the quality of services has resulted in more than 20-25 live transmissions in various national and international meetings primarily for complex coronary interventional procedures. Invited guest faculty lecture sessions by renowned speakers and clinical experts are frequently organized in the department for continuous up-gradation of learning resources and enriching the students’ repertoire of all-round academic development. The department has been regularly conducting training workshops for pacemaker and devices, echocardiography, coronary interventions and simulations for structural heart interventions both as basic and advanced modules, for training and teaching of students and para-medical staff.

Research is driven based on investigator initiated intra and extra-mural projects and DM Cardiology thesis topics and publications generated out of the same.  The DM Cardiology resident programs of Sanjay Gandhi PGIMS is amongst the most sought after programs in India and the students rank amongst the most well-trained cardiology trainees across the country.  Our alumni are presently working in prestigious institutions in India and abroad and are shaping the careers of future generations of cardiologists.

Our department is constantly involved in collaboration with multiple departments for designing, preparation and execution of various cardiac-skill oriented teaching modules directed at residents, scholars, technical and paramedical staff training. Our distinguished faculty members have been involved as co-authors in extramural projects and in consensus statement/guidelines of management of different Cardiology subspecialty areas within the country and also internationally.

Our department has also been involved in successfully conducting various national and international cardiology conferences [National interventional conference meeting (NIC), Annual Conference of Cardiological Society of India, UP chapter (UP-CSICON), Indo-Japanese CTO meet (IJCTO) and Indian Society of Electrocardiology (ISE), amongst others].  The department is also privileged to have been given the responsibility of organizing the most important national conference in the field of cardiology (the annual conference of Cardiological Society of India) in 2024, under the aegis of UP chapter-CSI. 

Vision

(a) The future vision of the cardiology department is to develop a centre of excellence for ST elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) care in the state of Uttar Pradesh.

  1. India has major challenges in implementing optimal STEMI care due to following four important reasons that lead to sub-optimal utilization of reperfusion strategies (whether fibrinloysis or primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PPCI):
    1. Hospital arrival times are reported to be 4-6 times longer than in the West and delays are these are often more magnified when patients are from rural or other inaccessible areas.
    2. Lack of availability of round the clock robust and efficient cardiac ambulance services.  It is well documented that STEMI patients who arrive at the tertiary hospitals in an ambulance have a better prognosis and long term outcome. 
    3. Often patients need to pay out of their own pocket to bear hospital expenses. 
    4. Not many hospitals offer primary PCI services round the clock, so reperfusion remains suboptimal.   At present,  SGPGI is one hospital which offers 24x7 primary PCI services for acute STEMI care in the state of UP.
  1. In constructing protocols for STEMI patients, it is important to build partnerships between hospitals.  Linking smaller, peripheral ‘spoke’ hospitals with a centrally located, PCI-capable ‘hub’ hospital like SGPGI, shall help improve the timelines of reperfusion therapy for STEMI.  Steps that shall be taken include:
    1. Developing an efficient self-sustainable system-of care in order to deliver timely reperfusion for STEMI.
    2. Building a well-organized and seamless cardiac ambulance service that shall help transport patients for STEMI care.   Ambulance services should have pre-determined hospital protocols so that patients can either reach a peripheral spoke (fibrinolysis-enabled) or a central Hub (PPCI-enabled like SGPGI) hospital within designated timeframes.
    3. The recent introduction of various government sponsored financial support schemes for the lower socio-economic strata has addressed the “pay-out-of pocket” issue to a significant extent.  What is additionally needed in future is the fast track approval of cashless schemes to manage acute STEMI care when patients present to hospitals so that both fibrinolysis and PPCI can be expedited.

(b) Work towards development of pediatric cardiology, multimodality cardiovascular imaging, cardiac epidemiology and the cardiac transplant program.

(B) Research

  1. Develop dedicated research protocols focusing on different aspects of Cardiology
  2. Non-Invasive and invasive imaging in patients with coronary artery disease including Coronary intravascular imaging and advanced echocardiography using Strain rate imaging and 3D echocardiography
  3. Conventional and non-conventional risk factors and premature coronary artery disease in Indians
  4. Genetics of atherosclerosis
  5. Adult and pediatric structural heart interventions.

(C) Teaching

  1. Offer structured and research based integrated academic postgraduate teaching
  2. Offer certificate courses as Refresher Programs for Cardiac Nurses focusing on the entire spectrum of Cardiology Care
  3. Work towards developing student exchange programs
  4. Skill development workshops on implantable cardiac devices, physiological cardiac imaging and online simulators.  

Mission

Mission

The proposed mission of the Department of Cardiology is to develop itself as a center of excellence for ST elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) care in the state of Uttar Pradesh. The Department shall work towards achieving its aim by the working on the following strategies:

  1. Promoting the concept of pharmaco-invasive strategy (that incorporates an initial strategy of Fibrinolysis followed by PCI). This has been scientifically documented to have resulted in outcomes similar to those of primary PCI direct PCI without initial Fibrinolysis. The proposed strategy shall focus on patients presenting to a non-PCI center (especially that are not equipped to perform Primary PCI within first two hours) and offer Fibrinolysis at the point of contact with a non-PCI-capable center followed by Transfer to SGPGIMS for coronary angiography/PCI within 24 h of fibrinolysis.
  2. Work towards creating public awareness about early recognition of STEMI symptoms by patients and encouraging them to seek timely emergency medical help. In this context, we also aim to run primary prevention programs for heart disease at community/school going children level.
  3. Continue to maintain the same level of excellence in interventional cardiology, structural heart intervention and in areas like CTO intervention and complex high-risk PCI procedures.
  4. We also look forward to develop a Heart Transplant program functional on a regular basis in collaboration with the CVTS department.