Ductal stenting performed on newborn

A team of doctors headed by Muthukumaran, interventional paediatric cardiologist, Apollo Children’s Hospitals, performed a rare procedure on a newborn.

G. Revathy from Tindivanam was unsure if she was taking the right decision when she learnt that her two-week-old baby, weighing 1.19 kg, had a heart defect that made him turn blue. The ductal stenting procedure, rare in such a small baby, is considered a complex procedure. Now, the baby is stable and weighs 2.3 kg.

When the baby with low birth weight was brought to the Apollo Children’s Hospitals, he was in a critical condition. The baby was diagnosed with pulmonary atresia with ventricular septal defect (VSD).

Elaborating on the condition at a press briefing on Thursday, Dr. Muthukumaran said the blood supply from heart to lung was disrupted due to the absence of a pulmonary valve. Since open heart surgery was risky, it was decided to go in for ductal stenting to increase blood supply to the lungs.

The baby survives in the womb with the help of a tube supplying blood to lungs from the body tube. Normally, this tube begins to close down after birth. “We decided to keep this tube open through the procedure. As the arteries in the baby was small, the right femoral thigh vein was accessed. We passed a wire through this vein with x-ray guidance and stented the tube to keep it open,” he said.

Corrective surgery

After the two-hour procedure, his saturation level improved to 85%. A corrective surgery would be performed once he gains more weight in three years. The baby was discharged in two days and the procedure cost ₹80,000.

The baby, now three-months-old, is Ms. Revathy’s third child. “When we brought him from JIPMER, I was doubtful about the procedure. But doctors convinced me to go for the stenting. Now, he is doing well,” said Ms. Revathy who has named her son after the doctor.