Doctor explains heart defect of Kimmel’s newborn son
Raise your hand if you had never heard of Tetralogy of Fallot with pulmonary atresia before Monday’s episode of ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live.
Awareness of this serious congenital heart defect got a big bump after the late-night host shared the story of his newborn son’s diagnosis and open-heart surgery.
Kimmel choked up as he told the audience how, a few hours after baby Billy’s relatively troublefree delivery April 21, a nurse detected a heart murmur (which is somewhat common in newborns) and observed that his skin appeared purple (which was not normal).
“They determined he wasn’t getting enough oxygen into his blood,” Kimmel recounted, “which, as far as I understand, is most likely one of two things: either his heart or his lungs.”
A chest X-ray revealed that Billy’s lungs were fine, “which meant his heart wasn’t.”
Later that night, a pediatric cardiologist diagnosed Billy with Tetralogy of Fallot (TOF) with pulmonary atresia, a severe variety of a combo pack of four related congenital heart defects named for Étienne-Louis Arthur Fallot, the French doctor who identified the disease’s four defining traits in 1888.
TOF affects one in 2,500 newborns; the pulmonary atresia va- riety affects less than 20% of that number.
Kimmel said Billy will undergo a second surgery to repair the hole between his left and right ventricles before he’s 6 months old. Dr. Nicolas Madsen, an assistant professor of pediatric cardiology at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital andvice-chair of the Medical Advisory Board for the Pediatric Congenital Heart Association says the procedure has multiple purposes: preventing oxygenated blood that’s intended for the rest of the body from spilling from the left ventricle through the hole to the right chamber and reducing pressure on the lungs, which left untreated can result in long-term damage.
“That’s why you don’t want to wait two or three years to close this hole, he says. “You want to do it sooner than later.”
Madsen says that with proper care, “Billy can achieve all the things he wants, from athletic pursuits to school to relationships and work.”