The All India Institute of Medical Sciences-Bhubaneswar has successfully treated a 22-month-old girl suffering from Pulmonary Alveolar Proteinosis, a rare disease of the lungs, by placing her on ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation) support.
This girl is also the youngest child in India to have undergone this procedure, AIIMS-Bhubaneswar said here on September 18.
According to the hospital authorities, the girl, who hails from Dhenkanal, had tested positive for COVID-19 along with other family members in June 2021. She had, however, recovered.
“In July 2021, she developed a fever with breathing difficulty, for which she was admitted to various hospitals of Cuttack and Bhubaneswar. As the child’s condition did not improve, she was finally referred to the Paediatrics Department of AIIMS Bhubaneswar,” hospital sources said.
She was subsequently admitted to the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit due to difficulty in breathing with high oxygen requirement.
“After investigations, she was suspected to be suffering from pulmonary alveolar proteinosis, a rare disease in which milk-like materials get deposited in both the lungs, which the child cannot cough out,” the hospital elaborated on the child’s condition.
It said, “The only available treatment option for this disease was washing both lungs with saline, which was technically challenging in such a sick child. So, an expert team of doctors was formed and the group decided to do the lung washing (whole lung lavage) by placing the child on ECMO (artificial lungs) support.”
The expert team worked with the help of other faculty, residents, nursing officers and support staff from the Paediatrics and Anaesthesia departments as the procedure was complicated and took the whole day to completed. The team carried out the procedure on August 30.
AIIMS-Bhubaneswar said that after this, the girl’s condition improved dramatically and she underwent a second such procedure on September 13, which improved her condition further. The girl was discharged from hospital on Saturday with minimal oxygen requirement.
