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Delhi

14-month-old Pak girl undergoes successful heart surgery in Delhi

New Delhi: A 14-month-old girl from Pakistan, who was born with an unusual heart disease, successfully underwent a surgery at a prominent private hospital here on Wednesday.

According to doctors at the hospital, the girl's left atrium (blood receiving chamber on the left side of the heart) was hugely dilated and was four times larger than the expected size.

This condition, called Giant Left Atrium (GLA), was pressing on the nearby airway structures in the chest.

"GLA is a rare condition among the pediatric population, which carries a significant mortality risk. When the left atrium increases in size, it causes complications by compressing adjacent structures such as food pipe, spine, pulmonary vessels. These complications are resolved after surgery," said Dr Mridul Aggarwal, paediatric cardiologist at the hospital.

"There was also a large hole between the lower chambers of heart (called ventricular septal defect) and the left-sided valve was leaking," said Dr Neeraj Aggarwal, his colleague.

"The baby was brought to the hospital with inability to feed properly, was having recurrent chest infections and every crawling movement was interrupted due to breathlessness. She was not able to grow, weighing only 6.5 kg at the time of admission," the hospital said in a statement.

"It was a complex and challenging surgery because very few cases of GLA have been reported in children below two years. We operated the child in a single stage open heart surgery, where the hole was closed, valve was repaired and the GLA was reduced in size," Dr Raja Joshi, chairman of Pediatric Cardiac Surgery at the hospital said.

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