Aug 15 — Six year old Navdeep was born with a complex defect in her heart. She was suffering from tetrology of Fallot, one of the most common heart diseases in children. The disease leads to "severely reduced supply" of blood to the lungs and also causes abnormal mixing of impure and pure blood though a large hole in the heart. The child feels severely short of breath and the colour of body turns blue and the patient is called a blue baby also.
Navdeep had all these symptoms. She was not just short of breath, but could hardly sit comfortably. She would squat down due to unease and discomfort. Her weight was no more than 13 kg.
It was at Sigma Heart Institute here that a team of doctors led by chief cardiac surgeon Murtaza Chisti performed an open heart surgery on Navdeep on August 6. The surgery took about four hours. According to the surgeon "it was a very difficult job as it involved correction of all the defects". The operation was successful and Navdeep is recuperating fast in the hospital.
The surgeon said Navdeep would now lead a near normal life without any problems. He stated that most of the congenital defects of the heart were amenable to total surgical correction. However, a few defects were too complex to repair and needed heart transplantation.
He advised that the defects like transposition of great arteries must be repaired soon after birth and some like tetrology of Fallot should be corrected during the first year of life only. He observed that most defects needed to be 'repaired' by pre-school age.
He revealed that heart diseases in children were either present from birth or acquired after birth. There were about 1.8 lakh cases of congenital heart disease every year in India.
He suggested that the best time to look for congenital heart disease was at the time of birth. Most cases, according to him, could be detected after physical examinations and echocardiography.
