New Delhi, April 4 In what the hospital claimed was a global first, doctors at RML Hospital have successfully performed a minimally invasive heart surgery on a 31-year-old woman suffering from a rare condition in which the internal organs were arranged in a mirror image of their normal placement.
The patient from Rajasthan suffered from Situs Inversus, a congenital anomaly, and presented with a complete mirror-image reversal of her internal organs, with the heart on the right side, liver on the left, spleen on the right, and stomach to the right, etc., the hospital said.
On evaluation, she was also found to be suffering from a congenital heart ailment – a partial Atrioventricular (AV) canal defect – in which a hole in the heart causes mixing of pure and impure blood.
"Situs Inversus itself is a very rare condition. As such, it does not affect organ functioning; it's just that they are misplaced. Having a partial AV canal defect with Situs Inversus makes the case rarer.
"Performing the surgery through a small cosmetic incision without cutting the chest bone made it the first in the world," said Dr. Narender Singh Jhajhria, director, professor and head of the cardiothoracic and vascular surgery (CTVS) department at the RML Hospital.
Instead of a conventional surgery involving the cutting of the chest bone, the surgery, led by Jhajhria, was performed through a 4 cm left cosmetic incision made below the patient's left breast.
During the surgery, the patient was put on a cardiopulmonary bypass machine to maintain blood circulation to the rest of the body, Jhajhria said.
The AV canal defect was repaired using a patch taken from her pericardium (the membrane covering the heart), using meticulously placed sutures, avoiding injury to her heart valves and conduction bundle.
The surgery was performed on March 30, and was covered under the government's Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB-PMJAY).
The patient was discharged on Friday.
