Tanzanian police officer gets new lease of life in Delhi hospital

NEW DELHI: Doctors at a private hospital successfully treated a 42-year-old Tanzanian police officer who was suffering from a blood clot condition.

Weighing over 120 kg, Jane Gumbo was suffering from deep vein thrombosis, a clot in the heart and pulmonary embolism.  The patient had a big ball-like clot in her heart which was bobbling in the ventricle, almost at the verge of blocking the pulmonary artery.

Her lungs also had blood clots. The patient had severe breathlessness and was in cardiogenic shock and had very low oxygen concentration in the blood when she was admitted to the Indraprastha Apollo Hospital. 

“Post investigation, we found that she had large blood clots in both legs, a big clot in the right ventricle and both lungs. Considering the criticality of her situation, surgeons refused to operate on her as the mortality rate is high during surgery,” Dr NN Khanna, senior consultant, Interventional Cardiologist and Endovascular Specialist, at the hospital, said in a statement.

The clot in the heart was of the size of a table tennis ball and if it had moved towards the pulmonary artery, it would have blocked the outflow of the heart and she would have died in less than a minute, the doctor said. The patient’s femoral vein was first punctured for preventing the movement of clots from legs to heart and lungs. 

“Later, clot-busting drug called Tissue Plasminogen Activator (TPA) was given by catheters placed directly on the clots to open the blocked lung arteries and to carefully dissolve the clot in the heart under supervision. 

“The procedure continued for 96 hours with continuous monitoring of the status of lysis of the clots by imaging and measuring serum fibrinogen levels of the blood to avoid the risk of major bleeding. Eventually, the clots in the heart and lungs got dissolved,” Khanna said.
“Gumbo is doing fine now and requires no further medical treatment except for oral medicines,” the senior consultant added.