KGMU docs cure patient with displaced organs

RARE CASE The man survived for 20 yrs with heart, stomach, spleen and intestines displaced due to ruptures in the diaphragm

LUCKNOW: What if one’s innards went topsy turvy, with the heart slipping towards the stomach and the latter partly going up to cling to the heart, displacing the spleen large and small intestines?

The mere description is enough to cause a shudder, but a 25-year-old patient survived such displacement in the body for about 20 years, before doctors at the KGMU operated on him to correct the deformity and declared him fit on Saturday.

“Such a case with over 20 years of survival has not been reported so far. The few patients reported in different parts of the world reached hospital in two or three weeks and had to be operated upon in almost dying conditions. But this man had been living with little problems for 20 years,” said Dr Suresh Kumar (in pic) of general surgery department of KGMU.

The family of the patient Subhash, a native of Mau district, told doctors that he had met an accident at the age of five when a mud wall in his village Kayampur had fallen on him.

He was taken out and rushed to the nearby health centre but ever since then, he was not in good health. “It’s possible that his diaphragm that divides the cluster of organs such as heart and lung on upper side and stomach, spleen, intestines on the lower side got ruptured at two points and gradually his organs shifted. But the rare thing is his survival for such a long period. There is no such recorded case,” said Dr Suresh Kumar, who operated on Subhash.

It was sheer luck that brought Subhash to KGMU. Since he kept ill most of his life, he went to several doctors and even underwent tuberculosis treatment twice in Mau. Finally in Azamgarh, a doctor referred him to KGMU. “TB treatment made me weaker and I requested doctors in Azamgarh to do a few more tests to know exactly what had happened to me. They referred me here,” Subhash told doctors at KGMU when he reached the OPD on April 9.

His operation was decided by Dr Suresh Kumar as he was worried about the two holes in the diaphragm.

“It was due to these holes that the organs got dislocated. Operation was immediately required to check further dislocation which could have been dangerous for his life,” said Dr Suresh Kumar. Subhash can now lead a normal life but needs to take rest for two or three months, according to the doctor.