SSKM grants fresh lease of life to 12-yr-old patient with extremely rare heart ailment

Kolkata: In a rare heart surgery, the SSKM Hospital has given a fresh lease of life to a 12-year-old girl from Murshidabad, who had been suffering from congenital Aortopulmonary Window - type II.

It is a disease where a channel or a window is found connecting the Aorta and Pulmonary artery in the heart since the birth of the patient.

According to the doctors at SSKM Hospital, it's an extremely rare case. Patients suffering from the disease die much earlier but in this case, the girl miraculously survived for a far longer period of time without any surgical intervention.

As there was a channel between the Aorta and Pulmonary artery of the patient, the purified and unpurified blood used to get mixed up in the heart.

According to a senior doctor at the Cardiothoracic Vascular Surgery department, Aorta supplies purified blood to various parts of the body from the heart, while the Pulmonary artery carries the unpurified blood to the lungs. In more than 90 percent cases of the disease, the patient dies much earlier if not treated.

Hasina Khatoon (12) was admitted to SSKM Hospital in November with various problems in her heart. She was subsequently taken to the Cardiothoracic Vascular Surgery (CTVS) department, where the doctors performed a number of clinical tests on the patient.

Her Cardiac CT scan revealed that the patient had been suffering from Aortopulmonary Window - type II. A special team of doctors was then formed at the hospital under Dr Santanu Dutta.

The patient was taken to the operation theater on Thursday and an open heart surgery was conducted for around 5 hours. During the operation the doctors closed down the window successfully and granted a new lease of life to the patient.

It was a difficult operation as it was one of the rarest cases, claimed the doctors. The patient has been recovering well and she has been kept in the ICU. Her health condition is being monitored from time-to-time by the doctors and nurses at the department.

"Type II (distal) defects occur in the distal part of the aortopulmonary septum adjacent to the right pulmonary artery, which is a rare defect. We adopted the transaortic surgical approach which provides better exposure and facilitates the operative repair," Dr Dutta said.