Bypass surgery performed on 13-year-old boy

Doctors at a city hospital here have successfully performed a rare coronary artery bypass surgery (CABG) on a 13-year-old boy suffering from life threatening triple vessel disease in the heart.
CABG is a routine surgery performed on adults with cardiac conditions. But, this life-saving procedure, which lasted six hours was the first in eastern India to be done on a 13-year-old, doctors said.
"In view of recurrent chest pain and triple vessel disease, we decided to go for a bypass heart surgery as that was the only way to save his life. It was challenging for us since there was involvement of all coronary arteries and the patient was very unstable before surgery," Dr Mrinalendu Das, senior cardiac surgeon at Rabindranath Tagore International Institute of Cardiac Sciences said.

Triple vessel disease, which means prominent blockages of all three coronary arteries, is very rare at this age and not very common in the country.
After surgery, the boy recovered well within a span of ten days and no longer complaints of chest pain or difficulty in breathing, the doctors said.