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Paediatric Cardiology
MIOT Performs Hybrid Norwood's Heart Surgery on 7-day-old Baby
The procedure offers a faster recovery to sick new born
babies from cardiac handicaps
MIOT Hospital, Chennai has successfully conducted `Hybrid Norwood Procedure'
on a seven-day-old baby suffering from `Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrone' (HLHS)
— a rare congenital heart defect in which the left side of the heart is
severely underdeveloped. The surgery was led by Dr Robert Coelho, Chief Paediatric
Cardiac Surgeon & Director, MIOT Centre of Children's Cardiac Care and Dr
Sivakumar, Chief Paediatric Cardiologist and Senior Consultant, MIOT Centre
for Children's Cardiac Care.
Anjali (name changed) gave birth to her third baby at her home town in Kerala.
Her joy was short-lived as the doctors noticed that the baby was struggling
to breathe. They shifted the baby to the nearest tertiary care centre at Calicut,
where the parents received a shock as soon as the doctors diagnosed the child
to have HLHS. Since the city hospital at Calicut could not do much for the baby,
she was referred to MIOT Hospitals on day five.
Explains Dr Robert Coelho, Chief Paediatric Cardiac Surgeon & Director,
MIOT Centre of Children's Cardiac Care, "In view of high operative risks,
most hospitals in India do not offer any surgical treatment in this condition.
Without treatment, HLHS is fatal, but with intervention, the infant may survive.
HLHS had affected the baby's left side of the heart (the left ventricle and
related valves and vessels) making it severely malformed and unproductive.”
The left ventricle was unable to perform its natural function of pumping oxygen-rich
blood out to the rest of the body. The aorta, the main artery out of the body,
was also abnormally underdeveloped with this condition.
Infants with HLHS born abroad are offered Norwood procedure which normally is
a palliative operation and is the first in a series of three open-heart surgeries.
"The basic problem in the hearts with HLHS is that the blood flow to the
whole body is markedly reduced due to a constricting ductus and there is a flooding
of the lungs with excessive blood flows. The intention of the first stage of
surgery is to regulate the excessive blood flow to the lungs and to provide
adequate blood supply to the whole body.
A newer procedure called the Hybrid Norwood Procedure achieves this dual aim
without connecting the circulation to an artificial heart lung machine by tightening
the lungs vessels with bands and widening the ductus," he added.
On day seven, the baby underwent this newer procedure termed as `Hybrid Norwood
Procedure - Stage I' successfully. This procedure offers a faster recovery to
these sick new born babies from their cardiac handicaps.
This never technique of hybrid surgery is a collective work done by cardiac
surgeons (surgery) and interventional cardiologists (catheter management) to
offer a safe surgical result. "This type of hybrid surgery has been carried
out only in very few selected centers present in USA, Canada and Germany,"
he added.
"MIOT Hospitals, India was the first in Indian subcontinent to have successfully
performed this Hybrid Norwood Surgery on two children in the past five months.
The Hybrid Norwood Procedure offers great hope to the vast majority of infants
who would probably not survive a month without interventions. The baby was discharged
in a healthy condition, 10 days after operation," he added.
EH News Bureau
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