Doctors for Healthy Living co-founder Dr Robert Mathenge has highlighted the growing role of minimally invasive procedures in treating cardiovascular disease, saying advances in technology are allowing some patients with blocked arteries to undergo treatment without open-heart surgery.
Speaking on Radio Generation on Friday, Dr Mathenge explained how cardiology has evolved from conventional approaches towards procedures that use small catheters inserted through blood vessels in the wrist or groin.
He said cardiologists can now treat some blocked arteries using imaging to guide small devices to the affected areas, reducing the need to open the chest.
“Normally, cardiology focuses on diagnosis, medical treatment and some invasive procedures. But we have now reached a point where cardiologists and cardiothoracic surgeons overlap, with cardiologists using minimally invasive, keyhole techniques through the wrist or groin. Small catheters are inserted and guided to the heart to open blocked arteries that would traditionally have required a cardiothoracic surgeon to open the chest.”
The Healthy Living co-founder maintained that such procedures can be performed under local anaesthesia, with patients able to leave hospital without the extensive recovery associated with some conventional operations.
“The only point at which you feel something is when we give you the local anesthesia at the wrist. When we are now putting in that catheter, so it goes in, and after that you are tracking it through the image screen, through the screen, and when it gets to where the disease is, you deploy the gadget. Then after you've treated, you pull it out, you put pressure here, and that's it. In a couple of days, you can't even see the hole.”
He explained that minimally invasive medicine was becoming an important direction across several specialties, although open-heart surgery remained necessary for some patients.
Dr Mathenge explained that patients with multiple or complex coronary artery blockages may require surgical intervention, including beating-heart surgery, where surgeons operate without stopping the heart completely.
“When you do that kind of surgery, you open the chest, and you give the heart medicine to stop it. You literally stop the heart from beating. It's very difficult to stitch something when it's moving. So in the traditional surgeries, open-heart surgeries, to treat those arteries, you actually stop the heart, then do your cutting physically there, and then after that you revive.”
The discussion comes against a wider public health challenge in Kenya, where non-communicable diseases are a significant cause of illness and death.
The Ministry of Health said in November 2025 that NCDs accounted for 43% of deaths in Kenya and nearly half of hospital admissions. The government has been strengthening specialised NCD services through the Kenya PEN-Plus National Operational Plan, which seeks to expand care for severe conditions, including complex cardiovascular diseases, beyond pilot counties.
Cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of death globally. The World Health Organization estimates that 19.8 million people died from cardiovascular diseases in 2022, accounting for about 32% of global deaths. It identifies tobacco use, unhealthy diets, physical inactivity, obesity, and harmful alcohol use among major preventable risk factors.
Kenya's own data also points to hypertension as an important cardiovascular risk factor. The 2015 Kenya STEPS survey found that 24% of adults either had elevated blood pressure or were taking medication for hypertension. A national analysis involving 4,500 adults aged 18 to 69 found a hypertension prevalence of 28.6%, while only 29.4% of people with hypertension were aware of their condition.
Dr Mathenge urged people to pay attention to measurable cardiovascular risk factors, describing them as part of the need to “know your numbers”.
He identified blood pressure, blood sugar, cholesterol, body mass index and waist circumference as important measurements, while diet, physical activity and stress also contribute to cardiovascular risk.
He also explained how prolonged inflammation can damage the endothelium, the inner lining of blood vessels, potentially allowing cholesterol to accumulate within the vessel wall.
“If it is chronic inflammation, it interferes with the endothelium. Smoking also damages the endothelium, while obesity can lead to insulin resistance, which affects it as well. High cholesterol is another risk factor. For instance, when you have high cholesterol and the endothelium has already been damaged, bad cholesterol is able to find its way through because the lining has become leaky.”
Kenya's National Strategic Plan for the Prevention and Control of Non-Communicable Diseases 2021–2025 also placed cardiovascular diseases and diabetes among the major areas of intervention, with the plan allocating the largest share of its projected NCD programme costs to Cardiovascular Disease and diabetes.
Dr Mathenge further highlighted rheumatic heart disease, explaining that some bacterial throat infections can trigger an immune response that damages heart valves. He said early identification and treatment of severe throat infections, particularly among children, could help prevent complications.
He maintained that prevention, screening, treatment, and lifestyle changes remained important alongside advances in medical procedures.