Ten-year-old Harsha Vardhan was diagnosed of neurological disease which needed surgery. He had a large atrial septal defect (hole in the heart) and, there was something else too – he also suffered from severe valvular pulmonary stenosis (valve obstruction), which had to be treated.

Harsha’s parents took him to various hospitals, but none was ready to help. The problem was complicated – at all the hospitals where he was examined, the neurosurgeon wanted the heart to be fixed first, and the cardiac surgeon wanted the neuro problem to be treated first. Both were complicated surgeries and the risk to life was plenty.
It was a typical catch 22 situation and no one was willing to gamble.

This was when the worried parents brought Harsha to Sri Ramakrishna Hospital. Interventional Cardiologist Dr. S. Manoharan examined the boy and took up the challenge. The doctor decided to first treat the heart without surgery, thus avoiding the necessity to stop the heart (circulatory arrest).

First the obstructed valve was opened with a large balloon. The hole was then closed with a device in the same sitting. The entire procedure was carried out under simple sedation in less than 45 minutes. The child was discharged 48 hours later with the advice to consult the neurosurgeon for the brain surgery. There won’t be a cardiac risk to worry about during the brain surgery now.

Sri Ramakrishna Hospital has performed many such challenging operations and they continue to offer life-saving medical solutions to patients. Till date, more than 800 balloon valvotomies surgeries and close to 300 device deployments have been successfully performed here.