Bako (name changed), an 8-year-old boy from Nigeria suffering from double-chambered right ventricle (DCRV) with ventricular septal defect (VSD) disease, got a new lease of life after he underwent a successful surgery here recently. The disease Bako suffered from is found among one in one crore people.
‘Deadly’ combination
VSD or a hole in the heart is a common genetic abnormality in children. Combined with DCRV, a form of right ventricular (RV) outflow tract obstruction caused by anomalous muscular or fibromuscular bundles, it was a threat to his life. These heart abnormalities are rarely present in the same person.
Bako was successfully operated at Aakash Super Speciality here recently.
Vishal Agarwal, director, cardiac surgery, Cardiology Department, said: “An advanced ventriculotomy — a surgical procedure in which a portion of a patient’s heart is resected to correct abnormal enlargement — was successfully performed. The boy, who had been admitted to the hospital with severe chest pain, breathlessness and palpitations, got a new lease of life. He was discharged from the hospital on the seventh day after the surgery.”
Another complication in Bako’s case was the fact that he was born with five chambers instead of four. These added to complications during the surgery.
His family members said he was initially admitted to a different healthcare facility, where he was diagnosed with the disease. Owing to the complications, the doctors suggested that the boy be taken to some other facility with advance capabilities.
“Bako suffered from a heart disease called DCRV, which means he had five chambers in the heart... DCRV is a condition where the patient has abnormally strong muscular band present in the right ventricle leading to abnormal two chambers in the RV that divide the right ventricle into proximal high pressure and distal low pressure chambers. High pressure can lead to heart failure,” said Dr. Agarwal.
‘Extremely careful’
He said his team was extremely careful not to resect normal RV muscles because they look very similar to the abnormal muscle band, for which meticulous RV anatomy is required for differentiation, else the team would have land in trouble and the patient would not have come off from cardiopulmonary bypass and it could have resulted in on table catastrophe.
