CHENNAI: In a rare medical feat, doctors at the Madras Medical Mission hospital in Chennai, enabled an 18-year-old boy who suffered multiple organ failure to recover from all the ailments and leave home after spending 58 days in hospital, which included 14 days of ECMO (Extra Corporeal Membrane Oxygenation) support.
The boy, studying in a residential school in Bangalore, was active in sports including horse-riding, football and cricket he when started getting joint pain and fever in November 2022 and was subsequently diagnosed to have a severe leak of aortic and mitral valves in the heart and congestive heart failure, which also affected the functioning of the lung, liver and kidney.
On the day he was admitted to MMM he suffered a cardiac arrest and was revived. Then on March 23 his two heart valves were replaced in a 6-hour surgery, said doctors who addressed the media through a Zoom press conference on Thursday.
Since the damaged lungs and weak heart muscles continued to fail in providing oxygenated blood supply to his body organs, he was initiated on ECMO that required the round-the-clock care of many medical professionals for 14 days.
