Doctors at Sagar Hospital, Bangalore operate on infant with rare congenital heart disease

The problem was a complete atrioventricular canal defect and accounts for only two per cent of all congenital heart diseases

M Neelam Kachhap – Bangalore

Doctors at Sagar Hospital Bangalore recently conducted a complex surgery on an infant to correct a rare congenital heart disease. Baby Harshit six-months-old male weighing 2.9 kg was brought to Sagar Hospital in the last week of March, with complaints of breathlessness and failure to thrive.

The problem was diagnosed as congenital heart disease called complete atrioventricular canal defect. “This is a rare congenital defect and accounts for only two per cent of all congenital heart diseases,” said Dr Ashwini Kumar Pasarad, Senior Consultant Cardiac Surgeon, Sagar Hospital. Explaining the disease, he said the heart is one of the first organs to develop and this happens around four weeks of pregnancy. “Complete atrioventricular canal defect is actually a combination of several closely associated heart problems that result in a large defect in the center of the heart,” he said.

Defects such as atrial septal defect (ASD) and ventricular septal defect (VSD), and abnormalities of the atrioventricular valves (usually mitral and tricuspid) allow oxygenated and de-oxygenated blood to mix. The lung gets flooded with more blood and as a result the pressure in the pulmonary artery is high. If untreated this leads to cell death in both the lungs and the heart and the child may need heart lung transplant to survive.

At Sagar Hospital, a group of six doctors and nurses including Dr Ashwini Kumar Pasarad, Dr Kishore KS, and Dr Narayanamurthy operated on baby Harshit for around six-hours repairing his heart. The operation was successful and the child was discharged after 10 days. At 15-days post operation the child is event free.

“The methods used to repair AV canal have improved greatly in the past two decades and the operation has a high likelihood of success. In India, AIIMS Delhi and NH Bangalore have performed such surgeries in the past,” informed Dr Pasarad.

The operation costs around Rs 2-3 lakhs and the patients child of Vijayalakshmi and Lingaiah from Velur, Tamil Nadu, could not afford it. The hospital’s social service arm arranged for the funds through various philanthropic institutes.

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