LAHORE: A team of the senior doctors on Friday treated three minor patients with complex heart problems through hybrid procedures in the Children’s Hospital, Lahore.

Declaring it a beginning of new era of modern technique in the country, the team said the Children’s Hospital has become the only public sector health facility of the country where first-ever hybrid procedures have been introduced.

Led by Children’s Hospital Dean Prof Masood Sadiq, the team of doctors treated three children, namely Anaya (5), Taqi (2) and Sayam (6), through the new technique at newly-installed hybrid lab in the hospital.

The other team members were Dr Nguyen Tin from Vietnam, Dr Najam Hyder, Dr Asim Khan, Dr Jamal Nasir and Dr Salman A Shah. It is said that all the three children who underwent the first modern procedure are recovering well.

Sharing details of the hybrid procedure, Dr Sadiq told Dawn that in the technique both the surgeons and interventionists worked together.

“The hybrid procedure is defined as combined catheter-based (through angiography) and surgical interventions in a single setting or in planned sequential setting.

“The hybrid cardiac procedures are modern techniques that rely on the cooperation of cardiac surgeons with interventional cardiologists performing their basic skills in a common operative theatre. The main advantages of the hybrid approach are closure of the defect under direct control,” Dr Sadiq said and added that the technique diminished the risk of hemodynamic compromise as well as simultaneous correction of other defects by surgery device closure or balloon angioplasty/stent implantation. It was possible to avoid cutting the heart muscles, avoid the risks associated with cardiopulmonary bypass, cardioplegia and the better accessibility for certain defects not approachable otherwise.

Mr Sadiq added a trained team and infrastructure were mandatory and the set-up was established at the Children’s Hospital at cost of Rs100m.

“The same team (that performed the procedure) has performed 15 more interventional procedures on children with a hole in the heart (ventricular septal defect) by using a new type of device called multi-functional occluder (MFO), hence avoiding open-heart surgery. Ventricular septal defects are the commonest of all congenital heart defects in children and this innovation gives a new hope to children with holes in the heart,” he said.

He termed the technique similar to angioplasty in adults and the children could go home the next morning with no scar and complete recovery.

Dr Masood Sadiq said the activity attracted other paediatric cardiologists from the Punjab Institute of Cardiology Lahore, Multan, Faisalabad, Rawalpindi and Peshawar who were able to only observe but assist in these procedures as part of their training.

Over 1,000 cardiac surgeries were performed free of cost at Children’s Hospital in 2018 while over 700 children underwent cardiac catheterizations and interventions the same year.

Published in Dawn, April 20th, 2019