NEW DELHI: A three-month-old boy diagnosed with a rare congenital disorder has received a new lease of life after undergoing surgery at a leading private hospital here, hospital authorities said on Tuesday.
The child was born with obstructed total anomalous pulmonary venous connection (TAPVC) -- a defect which can change the way blood flows through the heart and lungs.
It is a defect wherein the red or oxygenated blood do not reach the heart to be supplied to the body, but join with the veins.
"Hence the baby survives only due to the presence of a connection within the heart through which the red (good) blood mixes with the blue blood for survival. In this case, this connection was also very small, and there was narrowing in the circuit due to which the pressure in the lungs were also very high. As a result, the baby was blue with feeding and breathing difficulty," the Apollo Hospitals said in a statement.
After his condition deteriorated with acute breathlessness, the child got admitted to a government hospital where doctors suspected a heart disease. His condition deteriorated further and he was brought in the emergency department of Apollo Hospitals recently, it said.
"On admission, the child was on tube ventilation and was immediately transferred to the ICU under the supervision of Dr Manisha Chakrabarti, senior consultant, paediatric cardiology, Apollo Hospitals. The baby was stabilised and his echo was done and he was diagnosed with cyanotic heart disease: obstructed TAPV," it added.
Surgical repair was done by CTVS surgeon Rajesh Sharma with help of anaesthetist Nitya Bisarya on the same day, since any delay would have been fatal.
Dr Chakrabarti, who primarily took care of the baby, said, "On admission the child was very critical, breathing heavily and had irregular vitals. We immediately did an echo that revealed this rare congenital heart disorder and performed surgery on same day."
Post-surgery the child needed to be in ICU for 11 days, till the time his heart and lung function were normalised completely. The baby was also given aggressive respiratory therapy. On May 16, the child was discharged in a healthy condition, doctors said.
Out of all congenital heart diseases, "this condition is one of the rarest," the hospital authorities claimed.
"While there is no set reason for its occurrence, there can be multiple factors responsible for it, like chemical exposure, genetic syndrome, and infections during pregnancy, unmonitored use of medicines by mother," the statement said.