While Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) is today the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in India. The number of patients who are treated with stents remains very low. Only 3 out of 1,000 coronary heart disease patients get treated with Percutaneous Coronary Intervention in India, the recent NIC (National Interventional Council) report suggests.

As per reports, India is expected to soon bear the largest burden of heart disease globally. Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) is the first among the top five causes of death in the Indian population, with forecasts estimating that over 61.5 million people in India would be suffering from Coronary Heart Disease by 2015.

The data divulged that even though there has been an increase in the number of cases, the rate of growth of coronary interventions has gone down over the past two years from 22 percent in 2013 to 14 percent in 2014. Over the same period, the percentage growth of stents used has also slowed down to 18 percent in 2014 from 22 percent in 2013.

NIC conducted a survey collecting data from 396 cath labs in the country. The data reveals: Only two percent of the labs are conducting more than 2,000 angioplasties per year; 70 percent labs are conducting less than 500 cases per year and CVD is highly under-diagnosed and even less treated through PCI - only 0.28 percent.

Dr Chandra said, "Due attention should be given to building infrastructure and providing support to the small centers, that need support in training and infra to grow further. It's important to note that the treatment adoption of stenting has not increased significantly in the low-price, subsidized segment. The government funded procedures came down from 45 percent contribution of the overall procedures in 2013 to 37 percent contribution of the overall procedures in 2014. This is mainly due to lack of attention to the other factors responsible for treatment delivery such as availability of highly skilled implanters and support staff, availability of advanced facilities like CathLabs for stenting procedure and lack of proper patient referral mechanism."

The data also shows:
· 28 percent of the patients are women - increase from 25 percent in 2013
· 11 percent of the patients are below 40 years of age
· 22 percent of the patients had blockages in more than 1 artery
· 43 percent of the procedures were self-funded - Out of pocket expenditure has increased from 39 percent in 2013
· Decrease in Govt Funding - from 45 percent in 2013 to 37 percent in 2014
· Rate of growth has fallen to 14 percent compared to 2013 when the growth rate was 22 percent.