Chest specialist near Anekal, Bengaluru

Specialist lung care within reach of Anekal

Anekal taluk covers a large stretch of southern Bengaluru Urban district, from the industrial belt around Bommasandra and Jigani out to Anekal town itself and the farming villages beyond it. For chest problems, residents have generally had two options: a local clinic that can treat an infection but cannot investigate a persistent problem, or a long journey into central Bengaluru.

KIMS Hospital, Electronic City sits at the northern edge of the taluk on Hosur Road, and it houses a complete specialist lung service including intensive respiratory care, bronchoscopy and a lung transplant programme. Dr. Manjunath M Negigoudara consults there Monday to Saturday. He holds MBBS as a Gold Medalist from Bangalore Medical College, MD in Pulmonary Medicine from JSS Medical College, DNB in Respiratory Medicine and a Fellowship in Interventional Pulmonology from Manipal Hospitals, and has personally managed 250+ lung transplant cases.

The lung problems that dominate in this part of the district

The respiratory conditions common around Anekal are noticeably different from those in the tech corridor a few kilometres north, and they are often under-recognised because they do not fit the expected picture.

COPD in people who never smoked

Cooking over wood, crop residue or dung in a poorly ventilated kitchen, year after year, causes the same kind of airway damage as cigarettes. In rural and semi-rural Karnataka this affects women overwhelmingly, and it is repeatedly missed because both patients and doctors associate COPD with smoking. A woman in her fifties or sixties who has cooked on a traditional stove for decades and is now breathless on walking uphill has a specific, identifiable and treatable condition, not simply old age. Say so at the consultation, because it changes the assessment.

Lung damage left behind after tuberculosis

Completing tuberculosis treatment cures the infection. It does not always restore the lung. Scarring, bronchiectasis, narrowed airways, cavities and destroyed segments can all remain, and they produce ongoing breathlessness, repeated chest infections and sometimes coughing of blood. This is post-tuberculosis lung disease, it is extremely common across this district, and it has its own management. Being told that breathlessness after TB is simply to be expected is not good enough.

Dust from stone and quarry work

Cutting, crushing and drilling stone releases crystalline silica, and inhaling it over years causes silicosis, a permanent scarring of the lung. Silica exposure also substantially raises the risk of developing tuberculosis, which means the two frequently occur together and each makes the other harder to recognise. Anyone who has worked in quarrying or stone processing in the taluk and has developed a cough or breathlessness should be assessed, and should describe the work plainly.

Agricultural and organic dust exposure

Handling stored grain, hay, poultry and animal feed exposes people to organic dusts and moulds that can cause hypersensitivity pneumonitis, an inflammation of the lung tissue that is reversible if caught early and becomes permanent scarring if it is not. It is diagnosed by linking the exposure to the pattern on a CT scan, which means the history has to be taken carefully. See interstitial lung disease.

Everything else the clinic covers

• Asthma in adults and children over 12, particularly where inhalers are not controlling it
• Chronic cough of more than eight weeks, which almost always has a findable cause
• Interstitial lung disease and pulmonary fibrosis. See pulmonary fibrosis and IPF
• Abnormal chest X-ray findings, including shadows found on routine or insurance screening
• Coughing blood, which always needs investigating and is common after TB
• Sleep apnoea and heavy snoring. See sleep apnoea
• Pulmonary hypertension. See pulmonary hypertension
• Bronchoscopy and airway procedures. See procedures
• Lung transplant assessment for end-stage disease. See lung transplantation

Getting there from Anekal

By road

KIMS Hospital is on Hosur Road at Konappana Agrahara, opposite the PES University EC Campus. From Anekal town the usual routes are north-west via Chandapura to join Hosur Road, or north via Attibele and then up Hosur Road. Either way expect roughly 30 to 40 minutes depending on traffic. From Jigani, join Hosur Road at Bommasandra and continue north, about 20 minutes. Parking is available at the hospital.

By metro, partway

The Namma Metro Yellow Line does not reach Anekal town, but it does end at Delta Electronics Bommasandra. If you can get to Bommasandra by bus or auto, the metro runs two stops north to Infosys Foundation Konappana Agrahara for the hospital, which takes the unpredictability of Hosur Road traffic out of the last part of the journey.

Plan the trip

Ask for a morning appointment when you call, so the return journey is not in the evening rush. Bring an attendant if the patient is elderly or very breathless. And send your X-rays ahead on WhatsApp to +91 79937 41199, because occasionally the answer is that you do not need to make the trip at all.

What to bring

• Every chest X-ray and CT you have, the films or digital images rather than only the reports
• Tuberculosis treatment records if you have had TB, including which drugs and for how long
• All current medicines in their boxes, including inhalers, so the exact drug and dose is clear
• Any previous breathing test results
• A note of what work you have done over the years, particularly any dust, stone, farming or chemical exposure

For patients from the wider area

Anekal taluk and southern Bengaluru

The clinic serves Anekal town, Attibele, Chandapura, Jigani, Bommasandra, Hebbagodi, Huskur, Neraluru, Sarjapura and the villages around them, along the Hosur Road corridor.

Across Karnataka and India

Post-tuberculosis lung damage, biomass exposure and dust-related disease are not confined to one taluk, and patients are referred from across rural and semi-rural Karnataka: Tumakuru, Kolar, Chikkaballapur, Ramanagara, Mandya, Hassan, Chitradurga, Davangere, Ballari, Raichur, Kalaburagi, Bidar and Vijayapura, along with Mysuru, Shivamogga and Belagavi. Beyond Karnataka they come from Krishnagiri and Dharmapuri in Tamil Nadu and from Anantapur and Kurnool in Andhra Pradesh. Photograph your X-rays and send them on WhatsApp before making a long journey.

International patients

Patients are also seen from Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, where post-tuberculosis lung disease is similarly common, and from Myanmar and Indonesia. Where treatment in India is recommended, a written clinical opinion can support a medical visa application. See second opinion.