A North West public hospital has just performed its first-ever atrial septal defect (ASD) surgery, the lifesaving procedure taking the team of specialists less than four hours, reports News24.
The patient suffering from the congenital condition – in which there is a hole in the septum that divides the atria of the heart – was a 21-year-old.
The procedure was carried out at Life Peglerae Hospital in Rustenburg, in a collaboration with a team from Job Shimankana Tabane (JST) Hospital.
Dr Mmuso Mogwera, who led the team of cardiologists from JST Hospital, said the procedure was complex.
“The patient, from a local village, came to us two months ago because she was struggling to breathe, especially when trying to exercise. We found a hole in her heart, something called ASD.”
The septum causes the mixing of oxygenated and deoxygenated blood in the heart, making the organ work harder to deliver oxygen to the body.
Mogwera said they doctors had two options. “We could send her for open-heart surgery where they open and put in a patch, or we could try minimally invasive surgery and close the hole through the groin.
“It was challenging because even though this was an adult case, paediatricians usually treat the condition. We had to get the help of a paediatric cardiologist and an extra cardiologist to do a sonar during the procedure. We also needed a cardiac anaesthetist who could control the haemodynamics throughout.”
He said the surgeons went through the right thermal vein and into the heart. “We initially struggled to get the right size (patch) as this was a big hole. We opted for a cribriform, which is used for closing patent thermal overlay. A difficulty was that the patch would dislodge when we would tried to pace it, but with the cribriform, it eventually stuck and was stable.”
Two hours after the procedure, the patient was in high spirits in the ICU and enjoying her dinner
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