10-year-old boy undergoes rare heart surgery in city

NASHIK: Doctors of a city-based private hospital claimed to have recently performed a rare surgery on a 10-year-old boy, who had a combination of patent ductus arteriosus (PDA) and coarctation of aorta. Gaurav Lakichand Jain of Sindkheda in Dhule was operated on July 11 and doesn’t have medical problems anymore, said the doctors of Shree Saibaba Heart Institute.
Dr Aniruddha Dharmadhikari, director of the heart institute, said aorta was a vein that supplied purified blood to the human body. It is known as coarctation of aorta when this vein constricts.
This disorder by birth is found among one in 1,000 heart patients, which often leads to stress on the vein supplying blood to the brain. It subsequently results in high blood pressure, severe headache and pressure on the left ventricle, which at times also leads to sudden death.
Doctors said Gaurav was also suffering from PDA, which is a heart problem as well. Heart surgeon Dr Rajdatta Deore said PDA was a problem that occurs soon after birth in some babies. In such cases, abnormal blood flow occurs between two of the major arteries connected to the heart.
Lakichand Jain, Gaurav’s father, said his son was suffering from blood pressure and headache right from his childhood. However, the doctors had then deduced that there could be a hole in the child’s heart and it may get filled over a period of time. Since the doctors had advised Gaurav’s parents to wait for 10 years, a medical check-up was conducted when he turned 10, wherein the rare combination of two heart problems was detected.
Deore said the surgery was performed for the first time in north Maharashtra. Though such surgeries are also performed in Mumbai, Gaurav’s parents decided to do it in Nashik after they came to know about Shree Saibaba Heart Institute.
Deore said one option was to open the rib cage and perform the surgery, while the other one was to take up the transcatheter procedure in which a specifically-designed stent made of platinum and stainless steel covered with polytetrafluoroethylene was used. He said after discussing the risks and benefits of both the options with Gaurav’s parents, they went for transcatheter procedure and placed the stent across the blood vessels to treat coarctation of aorta. As the problem of constriction of vessels supplying purified blood to the body (coarctation of aorta) was solved, the PDA closed during the same procedure ruled out the need of a major surgery.