Bhubaneswar: The 22-month-old girl from the Dhenkanal District has become the youngest patient in this country to succeed in receiving membrane extracuration therapy (ECMO) in AIIMS Bhubaneswar for post-covid rare lung problems, the Government of the Institute said.
In ECMO therapy, a machine does lung work while the lungs rest allow patients to recover.
AIIMS launched facilities about two months ago on July 15.
Dr.
Krishna Mohan Gulla, an Associate Professor of Pediatric who was involved in treating babies in AIIMS, said he had a rare condition called proteinosis alveolar pulmonary where it got accumulated in the lungs.
He developed a problem in July, a month after he recovered from Covid-19 in June.
It was detected after he left another hospital because of fever and difficulty breathing before being called aIims.
The only choice is washing lungs with saline, which is technically challenging to sick children.
The team of doctors formed and the group decided to wash the lungs (all lung lavage) by placing children on ECMO support (artificial lungs).
“To clean unwanted deposits in his lungs, he wore ECMO support for 24 hours on August 30 and in the support of the ventilator for three days after that.
He improved, the lung was washed for the second time on September 13 without ECMO support.
He was Responds well and dismissed on Saturday, “Gulla said.
The girl will still be on one-liter oxygen support for several days at her house.
He will need further follow-up to ensure there are no further protein accumulation, the doctor said.
Gulla said AIIMS New Delhi had treats three-year-old babies using Ecmo before.
All the literature available shows this Odisha girl will be the youngest has been successfully put into ECMO support.
ECMO is an expensive treatment, where many patients must be flown from Bhubaneswar to Kolkata, Chennai and Hyderabad during the peak of the second wave in April to June.
In the government sector, AIIMS BHubaneswar and SCB Medical College and South Cuttack have launched ECMO in recent months.