Dr Prathap Kumar is well known for the complex procedures that he performs and he is often sought after by patients who are rejected by most Interventional Cardiologists due to the complexity of the procedures. He is often the final hope to these patients who are in despair. Trained under one of the authorities in the field of Interventional Cardiology, Dr Imad Sheiban at Italy, Dr Prathap attributes his success to the lessons that he learned from Dr Sheiban during his initial days of Interventional Cardiology training at Italy. Most of these complex subsets like Left Main Interventions, Chronic Total Occlusion (CTO), Calcified lesion management etc were not being performed in India during the time that he returned from Italy.

Today Dr Prathap Kumar gets regularly invited to countries like Malaysia, Brunei, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, Maldives, Philippines, Tanzania etc for training Interventional Cardiologists. Also he is a regular visiting faculty at some of the most renowned Institutes in India including BJ Medical College Ahmedabad, Sri Nagar Medical College, Baroda Heart Institute, Government Hospital Madurai, Government Hospital Coimbatore, Medica Hospital Kolkata etc. to impart knowledge and perform highly complex interventional procedures.

Dr Prathap finds pleasure in imparting knowledge to fellow cardiologists. Apart from conducting well attended training programs, he has initiated many forums and one of the most prominent one being Indo Japanese CTO Club (IJCTO). Dr Prathap is the Founding member of IJCTO and along with 3 of his cardiology peers started this forum in 2013, to address the needs of Interventional Cardiologists who intend to pursue this procedure. CTO Intervention is considered to be the most challenging and time consuming procedure in Inteventional Cardiology. Japanese are supposed to be the world leaders in this kind of procedures. Dr Prathap is considered as someone who has equally good skills as a Japanese operator and hence is regularly invited to countries like Japan and the European continent to give lectures on topics related to CTO Interventions. IJCTO organizes Annual meetings and is one of the best attended scientific meetings of Interventional Cardiologists.

2022 has been a very special year for Dr Prathap Kumar where he has had the opportunity to lead many scientific organizations. He is currently the Chairman (2022, 2023) for National Interventional Council (NIC). NIC is the interventional arm of Cardiological Society of India (CSI), established to provide a forum for Interventional Cardiologists of India. It is estimated that there are currently more than 3000 Interventional Cardiologists in the country.

Apart from that, he is the Scientific Chairman for Indo Japanese CTO Club (IJCTO) , ICCK (Interventional Cardiology Council of Kerala). He is also the organizing secretary for Society of Coronary Imaging and Physiology (SCIP) 2022.

Awards and Recognitions

1. Master Operator Award – Best Interventional Cardiologist from the prestigious Healthcare Institute Amritha Institute of Medical Science, Kochi 2012
2. Trivandrum Healthcare Leadership Award 2019
3. World Medical Council Excellence award Healthcare 2019
4. Best complication case award for JIM Conference 2020 ,Milan, Italy

Research and Publication

1. Percutaneous Coronary Intervention in Unprotected LMCA stenosis: Midterm outcomes of single centre observational study. Indian Heart Journal 74 (2022) 96-104 : in 661 patients (Largest number of LMCA study in country so far) in 661 patients.

2. IVUS guided zero contrast angioplasty – safety and short term outcome in complex lesion subsets –journal of interventional cardiology , volume 2021, article ID -6626749.

3. Zero contrast left main bifurcation angioplasty in an elderly patient with chronic kidney disease , case reports in cardiology volume 2021.

4. IVUS guided rota assisted left main zero contrast PCI in patient with CKD .. IHJ cardiovascular case reports.

5. Retrograde chronic total occlusion percutaneous coronary intervention using single catheter .. single center registry. http:///doi.org/10.1016/j.ihj.2021.06.006

6. CSI book chapter 116 2021– should we be afraid of severe calcified coronary artery stenosis ?What does disrupt CAD III Study compliment us ??

Capable of doing all complicated Complex Angioplasty including Chronic Total Occlusion cases and rejected cases from other Centers.

One of the very few operators in the world doing Zero Contrast Angioplasty for patients with renal failure but not on dialysis.