Fourteen-month-old Zubair, who had a rare heart disease since he was in the womb, received the perfect gift on Eid as doctors at a city hospital operated successfully on him.
Zubair’s father, Mohammad Rushid, who lives in a mosque in Saharanpur on a daily rent of Rs 100, came here a month ago for the boy’s treatment.
After knocking on several doors, the family got succour at BLK Super Speciality Hospital. “Zubair had a condition called patent ductus arteriosus, which every one has in the womb. It’s a bypass for lungs, which are not functional in the utero. The track is supposed to close days after birth. In Zubair’s case, it had not closed, allowing oxygen-rich blood from the aorta to mix with oxygen-poor blood from the pulmonary artery,” said Dr Vikas Kohli, director and HOD,B LK Children’s Heart Institute.
“We conducted a procedure similar to angioplasty, where a wire was passed into the heart from the groin area and the PDA was crossed. Over this, a catheter (a plastic tube like the ball pen refill but much longer) was passed over the wire to close the opening,” the doctor said.
He added that the procedure was carried out with general anesthesia so that the patient can get up immediately after the procedure and take a feed early after the procedure.
PDA, doctors say, occurs in about 8 out of every 1,000 premature babies, compared with 2 out of every 1,000 full-term babies.
Source: The Times of India