A city hospital successfully performed an emergency repair of ruptured heart following a heart attack on a 52-year-old man.

P Ramesh was brought to Kovai Medical Centre and Hospital (KMCH) with severe chest pain on October 25 and a coronary angiogram revealed a block in the right heart artery for which primary stenting was done, after finding that he had had a major heart attack.

Though his pain got better he had difficulty in breathing, following which echocardiography was performed that showed that the septum between the left and right ventricle was ruptured, which was one of the complications after major heart attacks, Dr Thomas Alexander, interventional cardiologist at KMCH, said.

Dr Alexander said this condition was rare and most patients died within hours if it was not surgically corrected. Ramesh was immediately shifted to the Cardiothoracic Surgical ICU and put on cardiac support (Intra Aortic Balloon Pump) to improve his cardiac output. Even surgery in this condition had a high mortality rate, Dr Alexander said.

Then Ramesh was taken for emergency surgical repair by D Prashant Vaijayanth, Director of Cardiothoracic Surgery at KMCH, and the patient was connected to a heart-lung machine. His heart was stopped with cardioplegic solution. The ventricular chamber was opened, the dead portion of the heart was exercised and the defect was repaired with infarct exclusion technique, using bovine pericardium.

Ramesh’s recovery in the post-operative period was good and he was discharged in a stable condition on the fifth post-operative day.