PM had it at 76, Sharon had it at just 5 months

Dressed in a frilly pink frock, one-and-half-year-old Sharon, is a picture of good health.

Except for a long scar running down her chest, which serves to remind her doting parents the fact that Sharon’s life is a gift they received from a team of paediatric cardiac experts in the city a year ago.

In January last year, surgeons at Fortis Hospitals, Mulund (formerly Wockhardt Hospitals), performed a complex beating heart coronary artery bypass surgery on the five-month-old infant, for the very first time. She was diagnosed with a rare congenital deformity called Anomalous Left Coronary Artery from the Pulmonary Artery (ALCAPA).

According to the doctors at the hospital, there are no medical records about such a surgery being performed on an infant.

The procedure, however, is done regularly on adults. Prime minister Manmohan Singh also underwent this surgery in January last year.

“While the PM and many others have undergone beating heart surgery, it has not been performed on an infant because instruments such as a stabilizer (which makes a part of the constantly beating heart immobile) small enough for an infant’s heart are not manufactured,” explained Dr Suresh Joshi, consultant paediatric cardiac surgeon, Fortis Hospitals, Mulund.

Born on July 13, 2008, baby’s Sharon problems started three months later. “She had cough and cold. Suspecting pneumonia, the doctor suggested an X-ray, which showed an enlarged heart.

We were then asked to take an ECG, which revealed the magnitude of the problem,” said Bonnie D’Souza, Sharon’s father who works as a freelance placement consultant.

“ALCAPA is seen in one in every four lakh babies and is a malformation where the left coronary artery comes out of the pulmonary artery instead of the aorta (the main blood supplying artery). In simpler terms, the defect caused impure blood to be distributed to her heart, reducing her heart function to just 20%,” explained Dr Joshi.

“If not treated in time, the deformity causes death in the first year of life in 85% of the cases,” said Dr Joshi.

Sharon needed a bypass surgery using the artery from her left arm, to connect the anomalous left coronary artery with the aorta.

“Usually, a heart-lung machine is required for such a procedure. However, this involves stopping the heart, a long post operative recovery period, risk of complications such as fluid retention, kidney failure, lung injuries, and a lot of expenditure,” explained Dr Joshi.

“That is why we chose the two-hour long beating heart surgery procedure, which though complex, involved less risk for the baby.”
“Sharon is more active now and weighs a healthy 8.7 kg. Doctors said she will not need any medicine in future and can even become a sportsperson if she wants,” said D’Souza.

Sharon’s case — which will be presented in the World Congress this year — has encouraged Dr Joshi’s team to perform five more beating heart procedures on infants in the last year.