Assam: In a first in Northeast, doctors perform complex cardiac surgery on baby in Guwahati hospital

Guwahati: In a first in the entire Northeastern region of India, a rare cardiac interventional surgery was performed at a Guwahati-based private hospital recently.

Under the guidance of a renowned Indian cardiac surgeon, a team of doctors successfully operated on a two-kilogram twin baby at a private hospital using an American-made button Piccolo device by keyhole surgery.

The male baby was the second of twins weighing 690 grams and had persistent Ductus Arteriosus (DA), a normal blood vessel that connects two major arteries. The infant was having symptoms of heart failure and respiratory distress since birth. 

He was managed conservatively in another local hospital for the past three months. His elder twin, who had a normal heart, was gaining weight and weighed six kilograms, while the hospitalized baby had all symptoms of weight loss, respiratory distress, difficulty in feeding and heart failure.

After being under treatment at the private hospital for the past one month, the baby was operated by a team of doctors using keyhole surgery and discharged from the hospital after keeping him under observation for 24 hours in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). 

The baby is now feeding well and has already started gaining weight after being discharged from the hospital.

Approximately, nine such keyhole surgeries have been done in the entire Eastern region of India so far and it was for the first time in the Northeast that such a rare surgery was performed on an infant.

Patent Ductus Arteriosus (PDA) is a persistent hole in between the two major blood vessels leading from the heart. It is a heart problem present in a child since its birth. Normally, there is an opening in between the two blood vessels when the baby is inside the mother’s womb but usually closes shortly after birth. 

The persistent opening of this hole causes a lot of life-threatening problems, especially in preterm and low birth weight babies weighing less than 2.5 kilograms.

The common complications of PDA are weight loss, heart failure, gut infection, difficulty in feeding, ventilator-dependent respiratory distress, high heart rate, infection and could even lead to death.

It is indeed a boon for the people in this part of the country that such advanced pediatric cardiology interventions are now available in the Northeast.