Heart surgery by the locals in resource-limited settings: The experience from Ethiopia

BACKGROUND: In developing countries, despite its demand is high, heart surgery is not always accessible to the neediest patients. We aimed to describe the early outcomes of heart surgeries that were performed by a local cardiac surgical team in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. METHODS: Data were collected through chart abstraction of patients who underwent heart surgery from the period of June 2017 to July 2021 by the same local cardiac surgical team at 3 centers in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Data were analyzed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences for Windows version 20.0. RESULTS: A total of 290 patients who underwent heart surgery during the specified period were included in the study. Of the total, 192 patients underwent valve surgery (177 were patients with rheumatic valvular disease and 15 were valve surgeries with other causes) with a 30-day mortality rate of 9 (4.7%), 33 patients underwent coronary artery bypass graft with a 30-day mortality rate of 3 (9.1%), 58 patients underwent repair for congenital heart diseases with no 30-day mortality. Specifically, button Bentall was done for 1 patient; maze procedure was done for 2 patients along with mitral valve surgery, and a total of 7 out of 290 (2.4%) underwent redo heart surgery. The overall procedure-related mortality was 4.1%. CONCLUSIONS: In addition to operating on a large number of cardiac patients, the local cardiac surgical team was able to do complex surgical procedures such as button Bentall, left maze procedure, redo valve surgeries, and coronary artery bypass graft surgery in a resource-limited setup. The overall patient outcome was comparable to reports from other centers.