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Closure of Holes in the Heart Without Surgery – A Dream Turned Reality!!
By Admin
8-10/1000 live born babies have congenital defects in the heart. The most common defects are “Holes in the Heart.” For last six- seven decades, the only treatment available was surgical closure. Though the ultimate outcome was good, these children had to inevitably suffer the pain, scar and long hospital stay. From 1970s onwards, a group of cardiologists started thinking differently. They experimented on animals by creating holes in their hearts and then tried closing them without surgery. Gradually they replicated the whole procedure on humans. For the last twenty years, nonsurgical closure or device closure has been the norm.
The Common Holes:
The commonest holes are VSD (Ventricular Septal defect), ASD (Atrial Septal Defect) and PDA (Patent Ductus Arteriosus). VSD is a hole in the interventricular septum or wall between two lower chambers (RV and LV). ASD is the name of the hole in interatrial septum and PDA is actually an extra pipe connecting Aorta and Pulmonary Artery.
Read more about the holes
Of these three, VSDs are the commonest lesion about 25-30% of all congenital heart defect whereas ASD and PDA are about 5-8% of them. Another point to remember is that all of us are born with small ASD and small PDA. However, VSD is never found in normal heart.
Click here to Read more abut Nonsurgical Closure – the basic techniques
Article by: Dr Maitri Chaudhuri MD(Pediatrics), Fellow National Board(Pediatric Cardiology) Consultant Pediatric Cardiologist Vikram Hospitals, BangaloreHow to recognize that a child has hole in the heart?
By Admin
Interestingly such babies often have Tell- tale signs which a conscious parent can easily pick up.
STEP I: How to suspect that a child has heart disease?
Frequent cough, cold and pneumonia
Poor weight gain as compared to peers
Bluish discolouration of lips and nails (Cyanosis)
Gets tired easily
Fast breathing or difficulty in breathing with flaring of nose, chest retractions
Difficulty in feeding: unable to feed at a single attempt (suck-rest-suck cycle)
Excessive sweating of forehead
Delayed development (delay in sitting, standing, walking etc)
Unexplained unconsciousness, chest pain and palpitations
The pregnancy and delivery history is also important. If the mother catches infections like rubella in first three months of pregnancy or is addicted to alcohol, cigarette or is taking medicines for epilepsy (convulsions), diabetes, thyroid disorders, their offsprings have an increased risk.
Family history is also crucial. Marriage between blood relations (consanguineous marriage), other family members having heart disease etc are high risk factors.
STEP II: Now what to do?
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