In Covid times, two-year-old cured of rare lung disorder

VADODARA: She was facing severe cough and breathing problems since last few months so doctors suggested a Covid-19 test. When the test result of Navya Soni came negative, her parents were relieved. But their joy was short- lived as her condition was diagnosed as pulmonary alveolar proteinosis (PAP) – a rare disease found in one person per 15 lakh births.
And the two-year-old girl, has recovered well from for PAP at Kashiba Gordhandas Children’s Hospital (KGP) in the city. “It’s a rare condition that happens due to abnormal sedimentation of protein in the lungs. It causes breathlessness and creates shortage of oxygen too. We diagnosed Navya’s condition some days ago and admitted her to KGP on May 21,” said Dr Dharmesh Patel, pulmonologist at KGP.
“To treat PAP, we have to insert tubes in the lungs via throat and wash out the protein with saline. But it was a tough task in this case as the patient was too young while the tubes used for the treatment are available only in adult size. We had to make lot of modifications locally to make small size tubes that could enter Navya’s lungs,” Patel told TOI.
A team of five doctors namely Patel, Dr Amit Dave, Dr Falguni Naregal, Dr Rajan Chanpura and Dr Hitesh Desai and nurse Geeta Nair then began Navya’s treatment on May 22. “We washed her right lung first with two litres of saline and four days later the left lung was washed with 1.2 litres saline. It was a complex procedure and we had to be very careful to not insert more saline in the lungs. It took us several hours to remove the protein sedimentation but the treatment was successful,” Patel added. She is being kept under observation in KGP till her condition improves.
Samples of the protein removed from Navya’s lungs will now be sent to an institute in the United States to ascertain if her condition is hereditary.
“Earlier, she would go breathless after walking a few steps but now she is feeling better. The treatment was successful and we are now hoping that Navya recovers soon,” said Navya’s father, Kunal Soni who works in a pharmaceutical company in the city.
Patel said he contacted some big and reputed hospitals in other states and they confirmed that a patient as young as Navya was never treated for PAP earlier in the country.