Rare surgery performed on 14-year-old boy in Coimbatore

Called, Leptospiral Endocarditis the life threatening condition is caused by infections spread through rats, dogs, cattle and pigs. The infection is picked up through direct or indirect contact with contaminated animal urine or feces.

The son of a famous doctor on the outskirts of the city, the school boy was brought to KG Hospital with symptoms of a stroke, speech difficulty and sudden weakness in the upper and lower limbs.

Dr. T.C.R. Ramakrishnan, chief neurologist found after CT and MRI scans that there were early ischemic changes, that is, a clot that occurs as a result of an obstruction within a blood vessel supplying blood to the brain.

Dr C Balasubramaniam, chief cardiologist told Deccan Chronicle said that the routine protocol of performing a thrombolysis, i.e. clot busting activity, using a drug, could not be done in the boy’s case because it could lead to bleeding.

”It is a rare case because the structure of the boy’s heart valve was abnormal. He had only two cusps instead of the normal three,” the cardiologist said. Hence, the flow of blood is different in his case.

Added to this, his heart valve was infected by leptospira, a dangerous micro organism that led to collection of pus in the infected heart valve. The boy suffered fever for 20 days and when the infected micro organisms moved into the brain, it resulted in a clot in the blood vessels in the brain causing a stroke.

“Only two cases have been published so far in world literature and this is a rare case of Leptospiral Endocarditis, resulting in the stroke of a young male. The organism infects the mucosa or enters through skin cuts or openings. The patient who was admitted on August 1 was treated for 45 days with IV penicillin injections and is now recovering, the doctor said.