Dr. Praveen Chandra

Dr. Praveen Chandra Chairman – Interventional Cardiology | Medanta
🏅 Padma Shri Awardee
🇮🇳 India’s First TAVI
❤️ Pioneer of Structural Heart Intervention in India
(1)

Interventional Cardiology
Heart Disease
Angioplasty & Stenting
TAVI
Bioabsorbable Stents
Cardiologists
Stents
Research

06/06/2026

🚨 Not Every Heart Problem Is a Heart Attack!

Many people confuse aortic stenosis with a heart blockage, but they're completely different conditions. While heart attacks are often linked to cholesterol buildup in the arteries, aortic stenosis is usually an age-related narrowing of the heart valve.

⚠️ The challenge? The symptoms can look very similar — breathlessness, chest discomfort, fatigue, and dizziness.

Understanding the difference can help with early diagnosis and timely treatment. Your heart may be sending signals—don't ignore them. ❤️



[Heart Health, Aortic Stenosis, Heart Valve Disease, Heart Attack, Cholesterol, Blocked Arteries, Cardiac Care, Valve Replacement, Heart Symptoms, Chest Pain, Breathlessness, Cardiology, Aging Heart, Preventive Health, Cardiovascular Disease, Dr Praveen Chandra]

A bicuspid aortic valve, a valve formed with two cusps instead of the usual three, is one of the most common structural ...
05/06/2026

A bicuspid aortic valve, a valve formed with two cusps instead of the usual three, is one of the most common structural conditions a person can be born with. And it runs in families. This is why, when one person is diagnosed, the conversation cannot end with them. It has to widen to include the people who share their blood.

The most important thing to understand about this condition is its silence. A bicuspid valve can function quietly for decades while it slowly thickens and narrows behind the scenes, and the person carrying it can feel entirely well the entire time. Feeling healthy is not the same as being in the clear.

This is why current cardiology guidelines recommend that the first-degree relatives of a person with a bicuspid aortic valve, parents, brothers and sisters, and children have a screening echocardiogram, even with no symptoms at all.

The test is painless, takes minutes, and changes nothing about how that relative feels today. What it does is allow their heart to be watched sensibly over the years, so that if the valve ever begins to narrow, it is found in good time rather than late.

If a bicuspid aortic valve has been identified anywhere in your immediate family, the simplest protective step you can take is to ask your own cardiologist whether you should be screened.

— Dr Praveen Chandra, Padma Shri, Chairman, Interventional Cardiology, Medanta — The Medicity. Educational content.

An individual assessment must be made with your cardiologist.

04/06/2026

Aortic stenosis is one of the most common heart valve problems seen with advancing age.

As we grow older especially after 60, 70, or 80 years the aortic valve can gradually become stiff and narrowed due to the natural aging process. Many people remain unaware until symptoms like breathlessness, chest discomfort, fatigue, or dizziness begin to appear.

The good news? It can be treated effectively when diagnosed at the right time.

If you or a loved one is experiencing these symptoms, don’t ignore them. Early evaluation can make all the difference. 🫀

(Dr Praveen Chandra Cardiologist Medanta, Aortic Stenosis Treatment Medanta Gurugram, Heart Valve Specialist Dr Praveen Chandra, Best Cardiologist Medanta Gurgaon, TAVI Expert India, Aortic Valve Disease Treatment)

There is no shortage of writing on how severe aortic stenosis is diagnosed. Most of it lists the tests. The part worth s...
03/06/2026

There is no shortage of writing on how severe aortic stenosis is diagnosed. Most of it lists the tests. The part worth saying out loud is the one almost no patient page tells you: which test settles which question, and which result is allowed to mislead you.

The first clues are quiet ones. A trained ear can catch the characteristic murmur of a narrowed valve long before the patient feels anything. An ECG and a chest X-ray give us early baseline information, the rhythm, the chamber size, and the visible calcium.

The arbiter is the echocardiogram. From outside the chest, or from a transesophageal study when the picture is not clean, we measure three numbers that define severity: the opening area of the valve, the pressure gradient across it, and the speed of the blood jet travelling through it.

When the picture from echo alone is not clean, when a weakened ventricle is masking severity at rest, when the numbers do not quite agree, when the anatomy is complex, we look deeper. Stress testing unmasks the true severity that a tired heart can hide. Cardiac CT, particularly calcium scoring, resolves conflicting data in a way that does not depend on flow. Cardiac MRI maps complex anatomy, especially bicuspid disease and the aorta above it. Catheterization remains the answer when non-invasive imaging leaves a real question open.

One last point. The gradient on a report does not measure only how narrow the valve is. It also measures how hard the heart is working to push. When the ventricle begins to fail, the gradient can fall not because the valve improves, but because the heart is losing. The most dangerous patient in the room can be the one whose report has gone quiet. A discordant valve area and gradient are not a reason for comfort. It is a reason to look harder, and often to seek a second opinion at a centre with structural heart experience.

If you carry a murmur once mentioned and never traced, that thread is worth picking up.

— Dr Praveen Chandra, Padma Shri, Chairman, Interventional Cardiology, Medanta — The Medicity. Pioneer of India's first TAVI (2010).

01/06/2026

The aortic valve is the heart’s ultimate gatekeeper. When this gate struggles to open, the entire body feels the impact.

If I had to explain Severe Aortic Stenosis in one sentence, it is this: the main valve of the heart becomes critically narrowed, preventing an adequate volume of oxygen-rich blood from exiting the heart.

Because this vital gateway is restricted, the rest of the body is forced to operate at a deficit. Vital organs including the brain, kidneys, liver, and lungs are suddenly deprived of the essential blood flow they need to function optimally. Meanwhile, the heart muscle itself is forced to work exponentially harder just to push blood through a narrowed space.

For patients, this internal mechanical struggle translates into very real, physical warning signs. You may begin to experience:
🔹 Unexplained breathlessness during routine activities
🔹 Sudden dizzy spells or lightheadedness
🔹 A feeling of tightness or pressure in the chest
🔹 A profound, heavy fatigue

Too often, these symptoms are quietly dismissed as stress or simply "getting older." But a failing heart valve is not a natural part of aging, it is a structural problem that requires a precise structural solution.

True clinical excellence lies in recognizing these signs early. Today, through advanced diagnostics and minimally invasive structural interventions (like TAVI), we can safely restore this vital flow and help patients reclaim their stamina and their lives.

For patients and families: If you or a loved one are experiencing these symptoms, do not ignore them. Your heart is signaling that it needs support.

🔗 Click the link in the bio to schedule an expert cardiovascular consultation with our structural heart team.

Severe Aortic Stenosis symptoms, what is Aortic Stenosis, heart valve narrowing, causes of breathlessness and fatigue, chest pain heart valve, Interventional Cardiology, TAVI procedure, TAVR, Dr Parveen Chandra Medanta Hospital, structural heart disease treatment India.

There are two ways to know about a disease. There is what the patient feels, and there is what the physician observes. A...
30/05/2026

There are two ways to know about a disease. There is what the patient feels, and there is what the physician observes. Aortic stenosis lives in the space between the two, and understanding that space is where proactive care begins.

The aortic valve is the heart's final gateway, opening and closing in the region of three billion times in a lifetime. In aortic stenosis, it gradually stops opening fully. The causes are well defined: a valve some are born with that carries two cusps instead of three; the slow settling of calcium with age, the most common origin, and typically silent until the seventies or eighties; and the long memory of rheumatic fever following a childhood infection, a cause largely resolved in some parts of the world and still clinically present in others.

What a patient feels, the symptoms may include breathlessness on exertion, chest tightness with activity, light-headedness or fainting, unusual fatigue, or a fluttering heartbeat. The nuance that matters: many people feel nothing for years. This is precisely why what a physician observes carries such weight. A characteristic murmur the patient will never hear. A carotid pulse that rises more slowly than it should. An echocardiogram that quantifies, with precision, what the body cannot itself articulate.

The distinction is not academic. It reframes the patient's role from waiting for something to feel wrong to partnering in something that can be found early.

The most reassuring step in heart health is seldom dramatic. Often, it is simply a considered conversation, and a stethoscope placed at the right time.

If you or someone in your care has questions about valve health or a murmur once noted and not yet explored, a proactive conversation with a cardiologist is a quiet, powerful act of care.

— Dr Praveen Chandra,
Padma Shri, Chairman, Interventional Cardiology, Medanta — The Medicity.
Pioneer of India's first TAVI procedure (2010).

28/05/2026

97 years old. No surgery possible. Couldn’t sleep. Couldn’t breathe properly. Couldn’t speak clearly.

Then came TAVI and everything changed.

This isn’t just a procedure. It’s a second chance at life for patients who had no other option. Our oldest patient treated so far is 97 years old and that’s not just a medical milestone, that’s a miracle made possible by science, skill, and the relentless progress of healthcare in India.

We’re proud to be part of this journey. 🫀

If you or someone you love has been told “surgery isn’t possible” don’t give up. Drop a comment or DM us. There may still be an option.

(Dr Praveen Chandra Cardiologist Medanta, TAVI procedure Medanta Gurugram, Dr Praveen Chandra TAVI heart specialist ,Best cardiologist Medanta Gurgaon ,Transcatheter aortic valve replacement Dr Praveen Chandra)

The aortic valve opens around three billion times in a lifetime. The disease begins when it stops opening fully.This is ...
27/05/2026

The aortic valve opens around three billion times in a lifetime. The disease begins when it stops opening fully.

This is what we call aortic stenosis, a narrowing of the heart's final valve, the one through which every drop of blood leaves the heart for the rest of the body. As the opening becomes smaller, blood flow forward is reduced, and the heart compensates by working considerably harder. It manages, often for years, which is exactly why the disease can stay quiet for so long.

The condition has three principal origins, and the cause is not incidental, it tells us a great deal about how the disease is likely to behave.

Congenital. Some patients are born with a valve that has two cusps instead of three. This bicuspid valve carries normal blood flow for many years, but the asymmetric mechanics wear it down sooner than a normally formed valve. Patients with bicuspid disease often present a decade or two earlier than the calcific population. The valve frequently travels with an abnormality of the aortic wall above it, which is why, in these patients, we look at the aorta as carefully as we look at the leaflets.

Calcific. A lifetime of calcium, slowly settling into the leaflets. It is the most common cause in older adults and is often described as the valve simply wearing out with age. That description is biologically incomplete. Calcific aortic stenosis is an active, regulated process, involving inflammation, lipid deposition, and the same cellular machinery the body uses to form bone, behaving within the leaflet. The valve does not passively rust. It ossifies. This understanding is why no medication has yet succeeded in slowing it.

Rheumatic. A consequence of inadequately treated streptococcal infection in childhood, a fever that has long since passed, but the valve does not forget. Largely vanished from high-income countries; very much still present across much of India. The mechanics of disease are different, the patients are younger, and the management priorities differ accordingly.

The reason this matters for the patient reading this: the cause shapes the pace of the disease and the timing of intervention. Two patients with severely narrowed valves can be very different underneath, and a careful diagnosis is more than a single number on a report.

— Dr Praveen Chandra, Padma Shri, Chairman, Interventional Cardiology, Medanta — The Medicity. Pioneer of India's first TAVI (2010). Educational content. An individual assessment must be made with a qualified cardiologist.



[bicuspid aortic valve, calcific aortic valve disease, rheumatic aortic stenosis, aortic stenosis in India, aortic stenosis causes and risk factors, severe aortic stenosis, and congenital aortic valve disease]

26/05/2026

I first walked into EuroPCR more than two decades ago, as a younger cardiologist trying to understand procedures I would later go on to perform thousands of times.

The course has changed in many ways since then. What has not changed is what it is for. EuroPCR is the room in which much of modern interventional cardiology is argued into being, where the evidence is questioned, where a difficult live case is dissected by people who have done a thousand of them, where the next generation of devices is interrogated before any of us decides to use them on our patients.

I return each year for the same reason a serious operator returns to any place of consequence, not for what is new, but for what is being thought about. There is a difference between attending a meeting and being shaped by one. Paris is the second kind.

What I take home is rarely a procedure. It is usually a sharper question. Whose ventricle should we leave alone for now. Where the asymptomatic threshold is settling in good hands. How a colleague I respect has changed his selection criteria, and why. These are the conversations that, over a career, decide how well one practises and they are conversations that simply do not happen at the same density anywhere else.

The science is global. The translation to our patients in India is the work of a lifetime. EuroPCR continues to inform that work, and that, more than the venue or the year, is why I keep coming back.

— Dr. Praveen Chandra
Padma Shri | Chairman, Interventional Cardiology, Medanta — The Medicity
Pioneer of India's first TAVI (2010)



[Dr. Praveen Chandra Europcr, Interventional Cardiology Conference Paris, Structural Heart Cardiology, Indian Cardiologist at Europcr, Modern Interventional Cardiology, Best Interventional Cardiologist in India, Chairman Cardiology Medanta, Tavi India Pioneer, Asymptomatic Severe Aortic Stenosis Treatment, Discordant Valve Area and Gradient, Continuing Medical Education Interventional Cardiology, Padma Shri Cardiologist, Medanta Interventional Cardiology, India First Tavi 2010]

Involvement in the training this week in Paris The sessions provoked a lot of discussion and was very relevant to day-to...
24/05/2026

Involvement in the training this week in Paris

The sessions provoked a lot of discussion and was very relevant to day-to-day practice. The way the evidence and practical approach to imaging, vessel prep, and dissection management came together made the content easy to follow.

The case examples were particularly helpful in showing how to apply these concepts in real scenarios, especially when thinking through full DEB vs hybrid approaches (new technology)



[Imaging, Vessel Preparation, Dissection Management, Deb, Hybrid Approach, Endovascular Therapy, Case Discussions, Clinical Practice, Interventional Procedures, Vascular Intervention, Emerging Technology, Evidence-based Medicine, Angioplasty, Training Session, Procedural Strategy, Dr Praveen Chandra]

Address

Medanta The Medicity
Gurugram
122001

Telephone

9958872855

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Dr. Praveen Chandra posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Practice

Send a message to Dr. Praveen Chandra:

Shortcuts

Share

Category