Heart specialists at Kovai Medical Center and Hospital (KMCH) here saved the life of a 52-year-old man by surgically correcting an interventricular septal rupture (a rupture in the septum that acted as a partition between the right and left ventricle). The rupture occurred soon after P. Ramesh suffered a heart attack, and the specialist said this was a typical fallout of a major attack.
The man was wheeled into the emergency department with severe chest pain on October 25 and the initial electrocardiogram revealed a major heart attack. He was shifted immediately to the cardiac catheterisation laboratory, where stenting was done for a block in the artery that was revealed by an angiogram.
But, he developed difficulty in breathing later. A detailed echocardiography showed that the septum rupture. This is one of the complications after major heart attacks, said Thomas Alexander, Interventional Cardiologist at KMCH. This condition was rare and most of the patients died within hours, if the rupture was not surgically corrected.
As soon as the problem was identified, Director of Cardio-thoracic Surgery D. Prashant Vaijyanath performed the surgery to fix the rupture. His recovery in the post-operative period was good and he was discharged in a stable condition five days after the surgery, said Chairman of the hospital Nalla G.Palaniswami.
