Malaysia has a strong reputation for specialised heart services and its leading hospitals are investing heavily to boost their international standing.

“Some 40 per cent of our revenue goes back into research and development and we have teamed up with medical institutions around the world to stay up to date with global trends,” said Mohd Radzif Mohd Yunus, chief executive of the National Heart Institute (IJN) in Kuala Lumpur.

The institute was established in 1992 and is Malaysia’s only centre specialising in the treatment and management of heart disease. It provides cardiology and cardiothoracic surgery services for adults and children and performs diagnostic, therapeutic and cardiac surgery for open heart, closed heart, thoracic procedures and transplants.

“Over the past decade, IJN has achieved many firsts for cardiovascular medicine,” Radzif said. He added that it was the first in Asia and Australasia to perform keyhole surgery to treat atrial fibrillation and the first to implant a heart-assist device called IVAD, the first in the region to perform bypass surgery on a conscious patient. It was also the first in Malaysia to perform stem-cell transplantation on a patient with end-stage heart disease and the first in Malaysia to do a lung transplant, Radzif said.

Rafeah Ariffin, group senior manager of business development and communications at KPJ Healthcare in Kuala Lumpur, one of the country’s largest healthcare providers, said: “International patients come for both non-invasive surgeries such as heart blockage detection and invasive surgeries such as angiograms and heart bypass surgery.” KPJ uses Malaysia’s “most renowned heart surgeon”, Tan Sri Dr Yahya Awang, Ariffin noted, adding: “We have invested millions of dollars in our 64 multislice CT scan.”

Christine Leong, manager of corporate marketing at Sunway Medical Centre, Kuala Lumpur, said the hospital will open new buildings housing expanded cardiac facilities in August.

Kuala Lumpur’s Pantai Medical Centre, meanwhile, has set up a coronary care unit.

Gleneagles Intan Medical Centre said cardiology is one of its strongest specialties. Most patients are referred there for heart treatments.

Penang Adventist Hospital performs about 350 open heart operations a year and sees more than 20,000 heart patients.

“We position ourselves as the heart centre of the north,” said Thean Heng Khor, the hospital’s director of corporate development. “Over the past five years we have invested about £10 million in state of the art medical equipment and systems.”

Its cutting-edge procedures include angioplasty using the latest non-wire mesh drug stents, laser heart surgery, ECP (non-invasive therapy to improve blood flow to the heart), EPS (the study of abnormal heart rhythm), cardioblate procedure (using radio frequency to rectify abnormal heart rhythm) and stem cell research.