A team of doctors led by Prof (Dr) Siddhartha Mukherjee, consultant cardiac surgeon, performed a rare surgery on a 54-year-old ‘Dextrocardia’ patient with her heart on the right side of her body instead of its usual location on 27 May and gave her a new lease of life.
Mona Rani Das, a resident of Khulna in Bangladesh, was carrying her heart in the right side of her chest. She had the rare cardiac disorder ‘Dextrocardia’ with ‘situs inversus’, another rare condition where all the vital organs are positioned on the opposite side of the body, which is found in one among 10 lakh people.
‘Dextrocardia’ combined with Situs Inversus is also rarer, affecting one in around every 40 lakh population.
Around two years ago, she showed symptoms of chest pain in the right side with breathlessness. She suffered a sudden massive heart attack. Following different investigations, it was revealed that she had her heart on the right of her chest.
Her daughter and son-in-law, who live in Kalyani in Nadia district of West Bengal brought her to their residence for her medical treatment in Kolkata.
On 24 May, she was admitted to Manipal Hospital, Broadway where after series of investigations it was discovered that she was a patient of ‘Dextrocardia’ with Situs Inversus where all her major organs like heart, liver, lungs, spleen and stomach were mirrored from their usual positions.
A team of doctors, led by Prof Mukherjee took the challenge and performed bypass surgery on her on 27 May.
“In this case, the patient had a severe heart attack that was initially not detected due to the atypical presentation of symptoms on the right side of the chest,” Prof Mukherjee explained on Thursday.
“It was challenging for us. If this had been an angioplasty, the challenges would have been fewer as a catheter can be inserted from either side. However, a bypass surgery required us to meticulously reverse our usual approach. The operation took around five hours, but we are pleased to report that it was successful,” he added.