Dubai: A Dubai-based two-year-old Indian boy survived a nine-hour surgery in India where he was rendered clinically dead so doctors could remove a massive cancerous tumour from his heart.
Aadhi Thoppil Fabeer underwent deep hypothermic circulatory arrest (DHCA) so doctors could operate on him to remove a 200-gram (almost the weight of an average pomegranate) intracardiac yolk sac germ cell tumour in his heart, Indian media reported.
The surgical technique meant doctors had to bring down the boy’s body temperature to 15C. The human body’s normal temperature is 37C. It starts to shut down and quickly die once the core body temperature drops below 22C.
An army of 30 doctors attended to Aadhi whose condition was extremely rare, which was discovered just recently, The Times of India reported.
Dr M.K. Mossa Kunhi, head of the Cardiac Surgery and Heart Transplantation Department at VPS Lakeshore Hospital in Kochi, led the team that operated on Aadhi.
“The surgery was the fifth successful surgery performed in the world,” Dr Kunhi said.
“On all the four other cases, the tumour was reported inside the heart. But in this case the tumour was inside and outside the surface of the heart,” he added.
Aadhi’s parents discovered his condition after he developed a fever recently. His parents, who have been working in Dubai for the past 10 years, took him to a hospital in Dubai for treatment.
Merin Fabeer, Aadhi’s mother, said she and her husband decided to take their son to Kochi for treatment although their doctors here denied them permission to travel.
Dr Kunhi said Aadhi was in critical condition on arriving at the hospital since 95 per cent of his blood circulation had already been blocked by the tumour.
“The child was breathless and we suspect that he developed the tumour during intrauterine life,” Dr Kunhi said.
The yoke sac tissue develops on the third day of pregnancy but usually dissolves within a month. In Aadhi’s case, the tissue developed into a malignant tumour. Doctors said this tumour commonly grows in reproductive organs and it is extremely rare for it to develop in the heart.
“It is a very rare condition and I have not seen one such case in my career. It is an extremely difficult surgery to perform as the tumour infiltrates the heart muscle and comes out,” said Dr Jose Chako Periappuram, Lisie Hospital’s cardiac surgeon, who has performed 17 heart transplants to date.
“We operated on him on Eid day and now he is doing fine. He needs chemotherapy course once in three weeks about three to four times. He was given his first chemo course on Saturday,” Dr Kunhi said.
Aadhi’s parents are happy about their son’s new lease in life.
“Our efforts have paid off and now he is recovering,” Aadhi’s mother said.
