In a span of eight months, Nethran, a pre-term baby, underwent a cardiac surgery for a hole in the heart, chemotherapy, a surgery for a cancerous tumour in the liver and a cranial surgery for correcting an abnormal fusion of his skull bones. A month after his last cycle of chemotherapy and discharge, Nethran is on the road to recovery.
Born premature, at eight months of pregnancy, in November 2018, the baby spent the next eight months at Apollo Children’s Hospitals, undergoing a series of procedures and chemotherapy.
“He weighed 1.2 kg at birth. He was diagnosed antenatally to have a hole in the heart. We were prepared to ventilate him because the lungs were still in the development stage. But his lungs were very fragile and kept collapsing,” Latha Kanchi Parthasarathy, consultant Neonatologist, told reporters on Tuesday.
While the first sepsis attack was managed with antibiotics, an ultrasound scan revealed an abnormal mass in the liver. Doctors confirmed it to be hepatoblastoma, a rare cancerous tumour, and started chemotherapy to shrink it before surgery, she added.
Tumour removed
As blood entering the heart was flowing too much into the lungs through the hole, doctors had to perform an open heart surgery. “One month after cardiac surgery, we had to take up liver surgery for the tumour. We removed the right lobe of his liver along with the tumour,” she explained.
However, this was not all. Nethran’s head was growing abnormally. Srinivasa Paramasivam, neurosurgeon, said: “The growth of the skull was abnormal, and if it is left, it would impair the brain growth. After cranial surgery, the baby is neurologically intact,” he added.
The baby, now weighing close to 5 kg, will be monitored. Sathyabhama, director of medical services, Apollo Hospitals; Meena Thiagarajan, neonatologist; Ramya Uppuluri from paediatric oncology; and Musthafa Janeel, paediatric cardiac surgeon, were present.