NIMS surgeons restore food pipe in 4-year-old and 18-month-old kids

Hyderabad: The surgeons at department of surgical gastroenterology, Nizam’s Institute of Medical Sciences (NIMS), have successfully restored food pipes in two children.

The children were born without a food pipe or esophagus, which is the tube that leads from the mouth to the stomach. The medical condition is a birth defect that occurs in two children out of 10,000 births, doctors said. A team of surgeons, led by Head, surgical gastroenterology, Dr N Bheerappa, conducted the complex surgeries.

The first child is a four-year-girl from LB Nagar, whose parents are labourers. At ESI Hospital, the girl, who did not have a left kidney, was offered a temporary solution by placing a feeding tube into the stomach. The girl’s unformed food pipe was restored using a part of colon by taking up a surgery known as colonic interposition. Two months after the surgery the baby is doing well, doctors said.

In the second case, the 18 month-old boy from Visakhapatnam who was born without a food pipe and the surgeons conducted colonic interposition on July 5 and the boy was discharged in 10 days.

“Infants born without food pipe usually have multiple organ defects. Of note, performing this complex surgery in these types of patients is not reported in the medical literature from India till now. Only a few centers in the world performed and reported the colonic interposition for esophageal atresia,” Dr Bheerappa said.