An Iraqi woman with a hole in her heart and a 3-month-old baby in her womb, were saved after doctors operated on her at the Global Health City. As they couldn't opt for open surgery on 31-year-old Intisar Kareem Naser, because the blood loss would be too much, doctors implanted a device using just echo-imaging to place it correctly.
She was admitted after a minor stroke with seizures and a transient weakness in her left hand. When Intisar arrived at Global Health City she was diagnosed with a 25 mm long Atrial Septal Defect and a paradoxical embolism. The reason she and her husband flew to India was because the doctors in Iraq advised surgical ASD closure, with the risk of loosing the child, which she and her husband Arkan Kutaif Owain Zaibil were unwilling to.
Dr R Ravi Kumar and Dr Nandkishore Kapadia ruled out Cath lab device closure of ASD as risky since it could induce anomalies in the unborn child due to radiation exposure. "This is a very rare clinical situation, which occurs in 0.1 per cent people across the world. Whenever such situation exists, the first objective is to save both mother and then the child, since mother's life is at highest risk. Innovative medical therapies like hybrid procedures for deploying devices to close holes in the heart are a boon to treat heart diseases in pregnancy," said Dr R Ravi Kumar Senior Consultant- Interventional Cardiology, Global Health City.
The doctors decided to close the ASD using a 28 mm ASD device, which looks like a double disc mesh. During the surgery, the double disc was pulled inside a 4.5 mm diameter sheath and the Sheath was moved across the hole slowly. The passage of the sheath and device was monitored using an Echo probe attached to patient's chest.
Speaking alongside the patient Dr Nandkishore Kapadia, Senior Consultant- CTVS, Global Health City said, "This procedure will be etched in our memories for when anesthesia was reversed on the operation theatre itself, her motherly instincts came to the fore when she asked if everything was ok and whether her baby was fine. This gave us goose bumps and a gratification as life savers, which no award or reward could match. She was stable in ICU and the recovery was uneventful. Intisar Kareem Naser is back to normal life and is back on her feet on the third day."