JOIN USA team of doctors at Indiana Hospital and Heart Institute have conducted a rare heart surgery on a month old child that was suffering from a rare chronic disease called Total Anomalous Pulmonary Venous Connection/Drainage (TAPVC).
The critical surgery on a 30 days old baby is touted to be conducted for the first time in a hospital in Mangalore.
Addressing mediapersons on Friday, Indiana Hospital Managing Director Dr Yusuf Kumble said that the boy child of a couple from Kasargod was diagnosed with heart anomaly within 15 days of the birth.
Quite rarely the infants develop this type of heart defect and they tend to die within three months if they are not operated. TAPVC is a congenial heart disease, where pure and impure blood gets mixed up and flows to right artium of the heart instead of left side.
“Normally, whenever we get the cases of babies suffering from TAPVC, we refer them to hospitals in Kerala or Narayana Hrudayalaya in Bangalore for operation. This is because the hospitals in Mangalore either lack the cardio specialists, neonatologists and neonatal set up for conducting the surgery.
With a team of specialists comprising of Senior Consultant Cardio Thoracic and Vascular Surgeon Dr Anand K T, Consultant Neonatologist Dr Sudheer K A and Consultant Cardiac Anaesthesiologist Dr M M Chetana Anand, the surgery was carried out successfully on July 1 and the baby is in a healthy condition and is ready to be discharged,” he said.
Briefing about the heart defect, Dr Anand said that TAPVC is found in 1.5 to three per cent of the children, according to the available literature. Of the children with this defect, only 20 per cent of them survive for more than three months and the remaining will die.
Conducting the surgery on 30 days old child which was weighing just three kgs was challenging, but there was no other way for its survival.
The operation requires a quality operation theatre, special ICU and stabilisation the child, he said. The treatment cost is approximately Rs 2.5 lakh.