Daijiworld Media Network – Mangalore (NR)

Mangalore, Sep 29: A new lease of life was granted by a panel of doctors from Father Muller Hospital, who successfully operated on a two-month-old infant with multiple holes in its heart without incision or surgery, informed a press release here from the hospital.

The press release stated that the baby hailing from Kannur in Kerala, was brought to the hospital in a very critical state. It had one major and two minor holes in the heart and was suffering from breathing complications and feeding disorders.

A team of doctors led by Dr Prabhakar and assisted by cardiologist Dr Anil, Dr Syyed, peadiatrician Dr Habeeb and Anaeasthesiologist Dr Subramanya employed the “interventional procedure” by which instead of a direct surgery, the heart is accessed by multiple coils passed through a major blood artery in the thigh of the infant, thereby closing the multiple holes. The entire procedure for this rare and unique procedure lasted only 45 minutes, stated the release.

The institution administrator Fr Dennis D’Sa in the release further informed that this type of procedure performed on a infant is quite risky and requires a high degree of skill, expertise and technique. According to him, the child’s heart was defective by birth and such congenital disorders are most likely caused when the child is born out of a small gene pool. This in effect means in case of children who are born out of marriages between blood-relatives, are more likely to develop such disorders, he informed.

The child is responding well to the treatment and reported to be normal, awaiting discharge from the hospital. Since the child comes from an economically poor background, the cost of treatment for the child was waived by the hospital authorities.