Rare surgery at Nita Ambani-led Sir HN Reliance Hospital saves 2-month old baby Aditi suffering multiple heart attacks

A two-month-old baby girl suffering from “frequent and silent heart attacks” that were damaging her heart muscles, was successfully operated upon at a Mumbai hospital, doctors said. According to the doctors at the Sir HN Reliance Foundation Hospital and Research Centre, when baby Aditi was brought to them, she was breathing too fast, feeding poorly and crying incessantly. “Doctors conducting an echocardiography on her found an abnormal artery origin which was turning away majority of the blood supply from the heart, and was reversing the blood flow away from the heart as well,” a statement from the hospital said. “Having been born with this defect, the baby was suffering repeated heart attacks,” the statement added. [caption id=“attachment_2654966” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Baby Aditi. Image courtesy Reliance Foundation Hospital[/caption] Aditi was born in Barshi and her parents knew by the tenth day that something was wrong, reports Mid-Day. They took her to a child specialist in Pune, Dr Chandrakant More, who diagnosed her as suffering from Anomalous Left Coronary Artery from Pulmonary Artery (ALCAPA). In this condition, a lesion is caused by an abnormal origin of the left coronary artery-the artery that carries impure blood to lungs. In the case of a normal baby, pressure in the lungs normalises seven days after birth. But in Aditi’s case, the lesion diverted the pink (pure) blood, thereby severely reducing the supply of pure blood to the heart. It resulted in the so-called ‘frequent and silent heart attacks’ that damaged the heart muscles, according to a statement from the hospital. This defect is extremely rare and easily missed by doctors.

“Nine out of 10 such babies die within a year. In this case, the credit goes to especially the mother, to pick up the signs,” Dr Shivaprakash told Mumbai Mirror. Preeti and her husband brought Aditi to Mumbai and on the recommendation of relatives, took her to Reliance Foundation Hospital, reports Free Press Journal. After conducting the initial tests and confirming Aditi did suffer from ALCAPA, a team led by Dr Shivaprakash, chief surgeon and head of Paediatric Heart Centre at the hospital, operated on the baby on 22 February.

The hospital said in a statement that the surgery lasted nine hours. The artery was disconnected from its abnormal origin, and was reimplanted at its right place in the aorta. A patch of the tissue covering the baby’s heart was used to reconstruct that part from where the artery was harvested. Doctors ensured that the reconstructed heart was supported for 30 minutes so that it functions properly. For the first three days after the surgery, Aditi had stiff lungs. However, her condition stabilised after five days and she is likely to be discharged in the next few days. A team of intensivists, cardiac surgeons, cardiologists, cardiac anaesthesiologists, and paediatricians meet twice a day to review her progress. She is expected to lead a normal life, the hospital said. _Mumbai Mirro_r reports that the surgery bill ran up to Rs 3 lakh, after the hospital subsidised the cost. With inputs from IANS