KOLKATA: A 10-month-old girl, who was rushed to the Institute of Child Health (ICH) Kolkata last month with a rare lung condition that can affect one in about 30,000 live births, has been discharged after doctors performed a life-saving surgery.
It was followed by a stormy post-surgery treatment.
“The child suffered from congenital lobar emphysema (CLE) in which air can enter the lung but cannot escape causing overinflation of the lung lobes. The air accumulated in the pleural cavity giving rise to a condition called tension pneumothorax and consequently cardiac arrest,” said Prabhas Prasun Giri, paediatric intensivist at ICH.
The child, Monami Ghosh, had been suffering from recurrent cough and breathing difficulty for over four months. Her parents had initially taken her to a hospital in Nadia. She was then transferred to a top government hospital in Kolkata in mid-January. But after rapid decline in her condition she was shifted to the child specialty hospital in Park Circus.
At ICH, the child was immediately put on ventilation support. Meanwhile, investigative tests were conducted on emergency basis and doctors detected the case as CLE. Her right lung was completely damaged. “It was an extremely challenging surgery. But we had to take a chance and conduct it on emergency basis as an attempt to save the child,” said paediatric surgeon Dr Tapan Jyoti Banerjee, whose team operated on the child. The damaged portion of the lung was removed through the procedure called lobectomy.
“Doctors had said the chances of survival was only 1% but promised that they would do all that they could. Now she is back home. It has been nothing less than a miracle by the doctors at ICH,” said father Manmohan Ghosh, a mason, who lost job during lockdown.