CHENNAI: Doctors at Sri Ramachandra Research Centre performed a rare surgery on a 13-year-old boy who was diagnosed with weak diaphragm along with twisted stomach and spleen. The boy was diagnosed with diaphragmatic hernia, a hole in the diaphragm (the muscle that separates chest and abdomen) that allows the abdominal parts to move into the chest cavity. Along with this he also had twisted stomach and spleen.
“So far, only four such cases were reported in the world. This is congenital; children usually have diaphragmatic hernia, but in this case, the boy’s stomach was upside down, so the spleen also twisted along with the stomach, and left side kidney was in the chest,” said Dr Prakash Agarwal, head of paediatric surgery, SRMC. The team headed by Dr Prakash corrected the defects through laparoscopic surgery.