General hospital doctors fix girl's heart without knife
Divya is the youngest in the history of the hospital to be given a heart valve correction without cutting open the chest.
CHENNAI: Divya of Aminjikarai was a happy child till she was diagnosed with a problem when she was five. Her parents could not afford treatment at private hospitals.
Luckily for Divya, now 14, doctors at the Government General Hospital (GH) came forward to fix her problem for free with a minimally invasive technique. Divya is the youngest in the history of the hospital to be given a heart valve correction without cutting open the chest.
When she was five, Divya developed rheumatic fever which resulted in her mitral valve in the heart getting damaged.
"When rheumatic fever is not treated properly, it affects the heart and contracts the mitral valve that is normally 6cm wide," said M S Ravi, head of the department of cardiology at GH. Despite a surgery five years ago, the girl continued to suffer from severe bouts of headache and breathlessness. When she approached GH, the doctors found that the valve had narrowed to 1cm and was causing severe problems.
Conventionally doctors perform an open heart surgery which results in the patient having a big scar. Such a surgery would also need more blood and longer hospital stay.
"We did not want another big gash down her chest. So we decided to skip the open heart surgery and opted for a minimally invasive procedure," said Dr Ravi. In May, doctors performed a percutaneous balloon mitral valvotomy, a non-surgical balloon procedure to treat mitral valve stenosis. "In this procedure, we introduce a catheter with a closed balloon at the end of it into the patient's blood vessel. When it reaches the contracted valve, we open the balloon and expand the region," said Dr Justin Paul, who was part of the surgical team. "Since the child was underweight and weak we used a smaller balloon to perform the procedure," he added.
The surgery which normally costs 5 lakh in private hospitals was performed free of cost under the chief minister's health insurance scheme.
Doctors said that patients who undergo this simple procedure suffer minimal pain and can be discharged within a couple of days unlike those who undergo open heart surgeries.
Luckily for Divya, now 14, doctors at the Government General Hospital (GH) came forward to fix her problem for free with a minimally invasive technique. Divya is the youngest in the history of the hospital to be given a heart valve correction without cutting open the chest.
When she was five, Divya developed rheumatic fever which resulted in her mitral valve in the heart getting damaged.
"When rheumatic fever is not treated properly, it affects the heart and contracts the mitral valve that is normally 6cm wide," said M S Ravi, head of the department of cardiology at GH. Despite a surgery five years ago, the girl continued to suffer from severe bouts of headache and breathlessness. When she approached GH, the doctors found that the valve had narrowed to 1cm and was causing severe problems.
Conventionally doctors perform an open heart surgery which results in the patient having a big scar. Such a surgery would also need more blood and longer hospital stay.
"We did not want another big gash down her chest. So we decided to skip the open heart surgery and opted for a minimally invasive procedure," said Dr Ravi. In May, doctors performed a percutaneous balloon mitral valvotomy, a non-surgical balloon procedure to treat mitral valve stenosis. "In this procedure, we introduce a catheter with a closed balloon at the end of it into the patient's blood vessel. When it reaches the contracted valve, we open the balloon and expand the region," said Dr Justin Paul, who was part of the surgical team. "Since the child was underweight and weak we used a smaller balloon to perform the procedure," he added.
The surgery which normally costs 5 lakh in private hospitals was performed free of cost under the chief minister's health insurance scheme.
Doctors said that patients who undergo this simple procedure suffer minimal pain and can be discharged within a couple of days unlike those who undergo open heart surgeries.
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