KOLKATA: Barasat District Hospital, which will soon function as a full-fledged medical college, carried out a critical surgery on a thalassemia affected girl by removing diseased spleen thereby giving a fresh lease of life to the patient.
There were risk factors involved in the operation as the patient has been suffering from thalassemia for a long time. The patient, Rimpa Khatun, a resident of Amdanga has been suffering from Thalassemia since she was 6-month-old. Her family members have been bringing the patient to Barasat District Hospital for blood transfusion for a long time. Few months ago she developed pain in her abdomen.
The patient was taken to the outpatient department of surgery. Various diagnostic tests performed on the patient revealed that her spleen enlarged alarmingly and it has been triggering several complications in her body. There were risks in her surgery. Dr Alok Kumar Moulik, a senior surgeon of the hospital was ready to take risks to save the life of the patient. A team of senior doctors was constituted to perform the surgery. The patient was admitted under Dr Moulik who conducted the critical surgery and removed the diseased spleen weighing around 2.5 kg. The team led by Dr Moulik took various types of precautionary measures at the time of the surgery as it remained critical.
Dr Moulik said that the hemoglobin level in the patient remained around 5.5 per cent. Senior Professor Dr Rabin Mondal, Dr Arpita Roy were also the part of the team that has given a new lease of life to the 17-year-old patient.
"A spleen weighs around 150 grams in a normal human being but in the case of this patient, it weighed around 2.5 kgs. The weight of the patient was around 30 kgs. It was a critical surgery as the patient is suffering from thalassemia," Dr Moulik said. Dr Subrata Mondal, hospital superintendent said: "It is great to see that a girl has been given a new life in our hospital. We had performed many critical surgeries in the past as well." When the spleen breaks down a red blood cell in a person with thalassemia, that iron often stays inside the spleen rather than being reused. Thalassemic red blood cells often also get stuck in the spleen.