Nigerian boy with rare heart condition gets new lease of life

In one of the rare cases, an eight- year- old boy from Nigeria was recently admitted to a Delhi hospital with a double chamber RV ( DCRV) with ventricular septal defect ( VSD) disease, which is found in one out of every one crore of the general population.

The boy underwent a successful surgery at Aakash Super Speciality Hospital recently.

VSD or hole in the heart, a common genetic abnormality among children, combined with DCRV — a form of right ventricular ( RV) outflow tract obstruction caused by anomalous muscular or fibromuscular bundles — was a threat to his life. As per doctors, rarely these heart abnormalities are present in the same person.

An advanced ventriculotomy — a surgical procedure in which a portion of a patient’s heart is resected in order to correct an abnormal enlargement — was performed on the boy, who had been admitted in the hospital with severe chest pain, breathlessness, and palpitation.

Unlike a normal healthy heart, the boy was born with five chambers instead of four which further added to the complications incurred during the surgery.

According to family members, initially he was admitted in a different healthcare facility where he was diagnosed with the disease. Owing to the complications of the case, the doctors suggested that the patient should be taken to some other facility with advance capabilities.

“Double chamber right ventricular is a condition having abnormal strong muscular band present in right ventricle leading to abnormal two chambers in RV that divide right ventricle in to proximal high pressure and distal low pressure chambers. High pressure can lead to heart failure,” said Dr Vishal Agarwal, Aakash hospital.