The advances in treating paediatric cardiac diseases were discussed in a Continuing Medical Education (CME) programme jointly organised by Ramesh Hospitals and Indian Academy of Paediatrics here on Sunday.
CME Coordinator and paediatric cardiologist N. Srinath Reddy gave a perspective on the Congenital Heart Diseases (CHD), most of which were manageable without complicated surgeries. Speaking to The Hindu, Ramesh Hospitals chief cardiologist and managing director P. Ramesh Babu said the Blue Baby Syndrome continues to be a formidable challenge for paediatricians, and that hypertension and heart diseases in children as young as 12 years was emerging as a major concern.
Septal defects were another thing the doctors come across frequently in children.
The condition of most of them was curable with the help of devices (without the need to perform the much-feared open heart surgery), but parents need to be aware of what exactly are the symptoms associated with and alert the doctors to enable them to handle the situations effectively.
“Even as advanced technologies are giving a new lease of life to patients suffering from various life-threatening diseases, the notion that as children grow the heart diseases will go away is heightening the risk of mortality at a tender age. This is because parents do not approach doctors with the belief that all is well with their children”, Dr. Ramesh Babu observed, while unveiling his plans to begin heart transplantation at the Ramesh Hospitals in Guntur this year.
Doctors R. Benedict Raj, Edwin Francis, R. Jyothi Prakash Reddy and T. Jayaram Pai were among those who gave presentations on diverse topics related to the heart.