ECMO is a technique of providing prolonged cardiac and respiratory support to persons whose heart and lungs are unable to provide an adequate amount of gas exchange or perfusion to sustain life.
The ECMO circuit acts as an artificial heart and lung for the patient during the therapy.
The girl, Swastika Agarwal, hails from Ghaziabad and is a known case of seizure disorder. She is under treatment with multiple anti-epileptics, and underwent the ECMO procedure at the Apollo Indraprastha Hospital in south Delhi, a spokesperson of the facility said.
Her X-ray showed that she had developed a patch in the lung which led to worsening of the respiratory distress.
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She was then put on ECMO, which is essentially a technique, in which the machine takes over the function of heart and lungs, so the organs can rest and be treated upon.
While the child's vital life functions were supported by the machine, Dr. Muthu Jothi, senior consultant, paediatric cardiothoracic surgery at the Apollo hospital operated on her lungs.
"During the procedure, one litre of fluid was drained from the right-side chest cavity and 200 ml was drained from left-side chest cavity. This fluid had accumulated in her body due to pneumonia which was distressing the lung functionality," Jothi said.
While she was under treatment, her lungs had the space an time to recuperate as their function was taken over by the ECMO machine. With rest, they grew better and the next X-ray showed that the condition of the lungs has improved immensely, he said.
The little girl braved through the treatment which included multiple days of ECMO and ventilator support, Jothi said.
She was taken off the ventilator on February 15 and will be discharged sometime early next month, the hospital said.
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