Tuesday, June 27, 2006

2-day-old's heart under knife

PATNA: Bihar has been berated for everything bad for quite sometime. Here's something to cheer about: A newborn kid is screaming and kicking, like others of his age, after Patna doctors performed on him an open-heart surgery when he was only two days old. Soon after the birth, the baby's face was turning yellowish. His young parents, Ranjit Ranjan and Abha Ranjan, were advised by a paediatrician to immediately consult a cardiac surgeon. A worried Ranjit, a political worker hailing from Ashiyama village in Jehanabad district, went to a private heart hospital along with the child, put on oxygen support. The attending cardiac surgeon, Ajit Pradhan, diagnosed the problem but cautioned Ranjit more than 90 per cent of such patients do not survive. "I still told the doctor to go ahead with his line of treatment," the child's father, now visibly relieved, told TOI on Monday. Born 3.01 kg on June 17 night, the baby was brought to the heart hospital the next morning. "He was in a precarious condition, gasping, cold and blue in colour," Dr Pradhan recalled. The surgery by a team of doctors led by Pradhan took more than six hours. "And 48 hours on, the baby was doing fine," the doctor said on Monday, adding he is on road to fast recovery. According to Dr Pradhan, the child suffered from a complex congenital heart defect called pulmonary atresia with ventricular septal defect. "There is no forward flow of blood from right side of the heart to the lungs of the patient," he said. The child was first put on medical support system for stabilising his condition before the operation. The heart of the child was exposed through midline incision. He was also put on heart-lung machine. He has now been taken off the ventilator. Now the child would grow like any other person, Dr Pradhan said, adding, however, another surgery would have to be performed on him after three years to put his body system in proper order.

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