KMCH Chairman Dr Nalla G Palanisamy told reporters here today that the youth, hailing from Kalveerampalayam in the city, could barely walk across the room and with shortness of breath, as he couldn't effectively oxygenerate his blood and he faced the risk of heart failure, he said.
The youth was diagnosed with rare life threatening blood clots blocking pulmonary arteries.
Dr Prashant Vaijyanath, Director of Cardiac Surgery, KMCH, said that he took up the peculiar case as a challenge and successfully performed PTE surgery, reportedly for the first time, with Delta Stream--SMART Cannula ECMO support for 48 hours.
In the complex eight-hour open procedure, surgeons stopped the patient's heart, hooked him up to a heart-lung bypass pump, and cooled him to 25 degree celsius, in order to reduce his body's need for oxygen.