A 21-year-old lady with chest pain, palpitations, and difficulty in walking after short distance and headache for 2 years was diagnosed by cardiologist Dr Pradeep Pereira to have a rare heart condition called coarctation of the aorta. The condition was present since birth where the main pipe aorta coming out of the heart supplying blood to the entire body was critically narrowed to 90%. She was advised to undergo repair as uncorrected, her life span would have been reduced with many complications including heart failure.
She underwent minimally invasive transluminal coarctoplasty procedure by a team of Father Muller’s Cardiologists Pradeep Pereira, Prabhakar, Sayyid, Jostol and Cardiothoracic surgeon Anand KT, where A tube was passed through leg arteries and dilatation with stent placement of the narrowed aorta was done. The patient was successfully discharged after 3 days with great relief in her symptoms.
Without treatment, coarctation of the aorta frequently leads to complications. In babies, it may lead to heart failure or death while in adults it leads to high blood pressure, which is the most common long-term complication of coarctation of the aorta. Blood pressure usually drops after the aortic coarctation has been repaired, but may still be higher than normal.
Many such surgeries are regularly performed by the in-house panel of cardiologist of the Father Muller Medical College Hospital who take utmost care of the patients. The leadership of Fr Rudolph Ravi D’Sa in improving the OPD facilities has also seen an influx of patients. The director Fr Richard Aloysius Coelho has been instrumental in uplifting the Father Muller Charitable Institutions to a standard above the rest.