Doctors at Coimbatore Medical College Hospital (CMCH) recently performed a complex lung surgery on a patient suffering from mucormycosis, which involved removal of a portion of his left lung.
According to a statement from the hospital, L. Govindharajan (37) from Mettur in Salem district contracted COVID-19 in April and was admitted to a private hospital in Coimbatore for treatment of severe pulmonary involvement. He was discharged from the hospital upon recovering from COVID-19.
After a few months, he was hospitalised in Salem after complaints of coughing up blood (haemoptysis), where he was diagnosed of mucormycosis.
He was subsequently referred to CMCH on September 28. Medical examination by the Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery revealed that the lower portion of the patient’s left lung was damaged due to mucormycosis. To prevent the spread of infection to the right lung or other organs such as heart, the doctors decided to perform left lower lobectomy, according to the statement.
The surgery was done on September 30 by a team of doctors led by Head of Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery E. Sreenivasan and Head of Department of Anaesthesiology Kalyana Sundharam as per the guidance of Dean A. Nirmala.
This procedure, which costs around ₹ 5 lakh at private hospitals, was done free of cost under the Chief Minister’s Comprehensive Health Insurance Scheme and the patient remains stable, according to the statement.
