Nine-month-old Defies Rare Heart Defect Without Surgery at Medica

News Desk, News Nation 360 : Dr. Anil Kumar Singhi, Head of Paediatric Cardiology & Senior Interventional Cardiology at Medica Superspecialty Hospital (A unit of Manipal Hospitals Network), performed a rare, life-saving cardiac procedure without surgery on a nine-month-old baby girl from Hili in Dakshin Dinajpur. With the crucial assistance of a multidisciplinary team that included physicians from Anaesthesia, Cardiology, and Paediatrics, as well as the CTVS surgical team, who were ready to handle any emergency, the girl miraculously recovered. Due to the child's family's reliance on agriculture, the advanced therapy would not have been possible without the assistance of the Government of West Bengal's Sishu Saathi initiative, which guarantees free treatment for children with cardiac disorders. While explaining her condition, Dr. Anil Kumar Singhi shared that the usual course of treatment for this condition is open heart surgery, preferably performed before six months of age. They chose to try a less invasive transcatheter closure at Medica, even though there was a considerable chance of lung damage after nine months. Under sedation and local anaesthesia, they directed a closure device through the baby's leg's tiny blood vessels, sealed the flaws, and guided it to her heart. Despite the failure of the first attempt, they persevered and were successful on the second attempt. Within minutes, the baby's lung pressure significantly decreased due to the device's ideal placement. Baby "Ananya," who is four months old and belongs to a farmer's family in Jamshedpur, suffered from severe breathing trouble and poor weight gain since late 2024. She became worse despite treatment and was ultimately diagnosed locally with a complex congenital heart defect. Introduced to Medica Superspecialty Hospital in Kolkata, a thorough analysis by the Pediatric and Congenital Heart Disease team, headed by Dr. Anil Kumar Singhi, revealed a rare and critical condition: an aortopulmonary window. The abnormal connection between her two main arteries in the heart was sending four times the normal amount of blood into her lungs, which resulted in heart failure. The corrective surgery was successfully conducted on May 14, 2025. Illustrating the success of minimally invasive contemporary cardiac treatment, infant Ananya was transferred to the ICU for monitoring and discharged the next day, stable, smiling, and feeding well.