Hyderabad: 20-year-old undergoes successful treatment for rare heart condition at NIMS

Without an open-heart surgery, the team led by Dr. O Sai Satish, senior professor cardiology, successfully implanted a pulmonary valve that guides blood from the right ventricle of the heart to the pulmonary artery on one patient, Banoth Ashok

Hyderabad: A team of doctors from Nizam’s Institute of Medical Sciences (NIMS) has successfully treated one of the rare heart conditions, giving a new lease of life to a 20-year-old.

Without an open-heart surgery, the team led by Dr. O Sai Satish, senior professor cardiology, successfully implanted a pulmonary valve that guides blood from the right ventricle of the heart to the pulmonary artery on one patient, Banoth Ashok.

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This valve had not been functioning well, allowing flow of blood back to the right ventricle of the heart from the pulmonary artery, resulting in severe breathlessness and palpitations to the patient.

The treatment has become unique, rare and complex given the size of the valve. The doctors implanted a 35 mm size valve in the pulmonary area, which is the largest and first of its kind placement in the country for the size. Since the valve size is bigger than the normal size the doctors had to get it done especially for this patient.

Ashok, who hails from Mahabubabad district, was diagnosed with Tetralogy of Fallot, a cyanotic congenital heart disease that made him breathless and blue with minimal exertion.

While Ashok was operated on for the condition at the age of five years in a private hospital, he started experiencing breathlessness and palpitations for the last four years. “I used to get severe chest pain and fainted several times in college,” said Ashok, a degree student.

As his condition worsened, Ashok consulted different corporate hospitals where he was diagnosed with a leak from pulmonary valve and treatment would cost Rs.25 lakh to Rs 35 lakh.

Ashok’s family, who work as daily-wage labour, consulted the NIMS doctors who evaluated the condition and decided to treat with a transcatheter placement of valve without an open-heart surgery.

“Since the patient underwent open heart surgery in his childhood, it is difficult and complex to perform it again. So, it has been decided to transcatheter placement of the valve via percutaneous procedure. The entire procedure took about three hours and went uneventful without any complications,” Dr. Satish said.

The entire cost was about Rs.15 lakh with majority being funded by the State government, while the family arranged Rs.5 lakh.

Dr. Hemanth, Dr. Sailesh Bhatia, Dr. Rajasekhar, Dr. Amarnath, Dr. Thiyagu, Anaesthetist Dr. Adnan, Cath lab technicians Om Prakash, Prameela, Srinivas Babu and sisters Flourence and Meena Kumari were among the team.