Complex surgeries are now performed in India and Indian hospitals have the equipment and the personnel to conduct these surgeries and the testament to that was when the doctors at Fortis Hospital operated on a 17-year-old girl suffering from recurrent heart failures.

Dr. T S Kler, Chairman, Fortis Heart & Vascular Institute, Fortis Memorial Research Institute and his team of experts including Dr Avinash Verma, Senior Consultant, Electrophysiology performed a complex surgery on a 17-year-old girl from Sikkim and gifted her a new life.

The patient was first presented at a camp organised by Fortis Gurugram in Sikkim and after initial investigations in her hometown, it was found that she is suffering from a rare kind of arrhythmia, called Junctional Tachycardia, which is very uncommon in youngsters at her age. For immediate treatment, the team of doctors led by Dr TS Kler decided to fly the patient to Gurugram.

The functionality of her heart was extremely poor, as the Ejection Fraction (a measurement of the percentage of blood leaving the heart each time it contracts) was only 30%. As the case was very complex, a team of experts at Fortis Gurugram conducted 3-dimensional mapping with the help of the new system Carto version 7 to precisely map the source of the arrhythmia. Upon thorough investigation, it was found that the arrhythmia was coming from the conduction system i.e. body’s natural wiring.

Speaking about the complex surgery, Dr. T S Kler, Chairman, Fortis Heart & Vascular Institute, Fortis Memorial Research Institute, said, “This case was a real challenge for us because life-threatening Arrhythmias are pretty uncommon at the age of 17. Many times, in small centres, these kinds of Arrhythmias don't get noticed and eventually the condition becomes fatal. In this case, there was a risk that even if we successfully ablate Tachycardia, she might face some dependency for the rest of her life. And if we try to get rid of the source of the arrhythmia, then we might damage the body’s natural wiring and she will require a pacemaker. Looking at this situation, we refined our mapping technique and mapped the exact source and ablated the arrhythmia in the body’s conduction system. We were very successful in not damaging body’s conduction system and save the pacemaker as well”.

Dr Avinash Verma, Senior Consultant, Electrophysiology Fortis Memorial Research Institute, further added, “The patient showed positive sign of recovery soon after the operation and her ejection fraction from 30% and went back to 55%. No one can say that she ever had a heart problem. Timely medical interventions and technology available at FMRI have played a pivotal role in saving the life of this young girl.’’