PIONEERING REDILATABLE STENT PROCEDURE SAVES THE LIFE OF 1.5 KG PRE-TERM BABY AT APOLLO HOSPITALS
Doctor’s at Apollo Hospitals Chennai performed yet another challenging procedure successfully
Apollo Hospitals, Asia’s largest and most trusted
multi-specialty chain of hospitals has successfully performed a Redilatable
Stent Implantation procedure giving a new lease of life to a pre-term boy baby
in Chennai.
The baby was one of the pre-term twins who were
delivered at another private hospital in Chennai at 30 weeks gestation and only
weighed 1.5 Kg. He was brought to Apollo Children’s hospital in the month of
May with severe breathing difficulty which was later identified as a heart
failure. Further diagnosis at Apollo Children’s hospital revealed that the baby
had developed severe coarctation (narrowing) of aorta, a potentially dangerous
heart defect that restrict the amount of blood being pumped around the body. The
child required immediate surgical intervention to stabilize, however, the risk
was much higher as the baby was under weight.
Dr. CS. Muthukumaran, Pediatric Interventional
Cardiologist, Apollo Children’s Hospitals and his team performed a challenging
procedure where the obstruction was balloon dilated (enlarged) where a small
coronary balloon is inserted through the Femoral Artery and the enlargement is
done. This procedure restored blood supply to the baby’s legs immediately.
Patient recovered and was discharged.
Observation after four months revealed that the
child had developed an obstruction again in his Aorta. Dr. CS. Muthukumaran,
and team used a novel technique of implanting a stent called Cooks Formula
stent through the Femoral Artery (artery for lower limb) that relieved the
obstruction completely. The Cooks Formula stent is a Redilatable stent that can
be dilated as the artery grows in size over the years.
Speaking about the procedure Dr. CS.
Muthukumaran, Pediatric Interventional Cardiologist, Apollo Children’s
Hospitals, said “Traditionally surgery is the only route to correct a coarctation
but this new stent technique can help pre-term and infants to recover from such
issues without a surgery. Now, the baby is five months post stent implantation
and doing well. This is the first time a small redilatable stent has been
implanted in a pre-term baby. 💢💢💢
