Bhubaneswar, Sep 30: Surgeons at the Institute of Medical Sciences and SUM Hospital, faculty of medicine of Siksha ‘O’ Anusandhan (SOA) here, successfully performed a rare surgery on a 25-year-old youth suffering from a congenital life-threatening cardiac ailment recently.

Sarada Prasanna Patra, who had difficulty in breathing and was unable to do any work, was admitted to the hospital for examination and a thorough scrutiny revealed that there was a large hole on the wall separating the two ventricles of the heart, a condition known as ventricular septal defect. Besides, the pulmonary artery was completely blocked.

“Because of the hole the purified blood was getting mixed with the unpurified and his oxygen saturation level was about 70 per cent. His artery size was also very less,” Dr. Sangram Keshari Behera, Senior Consultant in the department of CTVS, said.

This condition, in medical parlance, is known as Tetralogy of Fallot (TOF) which is a congenital defect, he said.

It was also found that since the pulmonary artery was blocked, several pulmonary collaterals, a network of tiny blood vessels, had formed on their own to help in blood circulation, he said adding “a mechanism exists in the human body to create new blood vessels when coronary arteries narrow to the point that blood flow to the heart muscle is limited.”

The patient was treated by the Consultant Cardiologist Dr. Dibya Ranjan Behera who conducted coil embolisation to prepare him for the surgery in the Cathlab. Cardiac anesthesist, Dr. Susanta Kumar Bhoi performed a major role in the surgery.

Dr. Sangram Keshari Behera said the patient was put on the heart-lung machine before the surgery was done. He closed the ventricular septal defect, enlarged the right ventricular outflow tract with a transannular patch and implanted a pulmonary valve.

The patient was recovering well and had been discharged from the hospital on Tuesday, he said.