Apollo Children’s Hospitals achieves a milestone by completing 6,000 paediatric cardiac surgeries

The Apollo Children’s Hospitals has completed about 6,000 paediatric cardiac surgeries and 10,000 cardiac interventional procedures since 2009.

Addressing a press conference held in the city on Wednesday, Neville Solomon, Senior Consultant Paediatric Cardiac Surgeon, Apollo Children’s Hospitals, said the Department of Cardiac Sciences at Apollo Children’s Hospitals has performed complex and high-risk procedures in many newborns and infants. Nearly half of such surgeries were performed in infants under 28 days. The youngest newborn operated on was only three hours old and the smallest weighed only 650 grams.

The team has performed an additional 1,500 paediatric surgeries in other branches of Apollo Hospitals and in international missions in Iraq and Nigeria. Some of the life-saving procedures performed include arterial switch operation, complex aortic arch reconstructions and surgery for pulmonary atresia, he said.

Elaborating on the minimally invasive techniques that help treat congenital heart defects, C.S. Muthukumaran, Senior Consultant Interventional Cardiologist, said these procedures reduce the need for open-heart surgery and the young patients recover within one or two days.

About 25-30% of the paediatric patients require complex surgery and the remaining can be treated with interventional procedures. In recent years, congenital heart diseases have reduced among infants in the State, he said.

Apollo Children’s Hospitals also collaborated with eight government medical colleges in the State to treat infants and train surgeons. In Chennai, the Hospital has tied up with Institute of Child Health and Hospital for Children. Agalyasri was one such infant who underwent procedure for heart valves disease when she was 19 days old. She was referred from Madurai to ICH Egmore with whom the Apollo Hospitals team had collaborated with for the treatment.

Ilankumaran Kaliamoorthy, Chief Executive Officer – Apollo Hospitals, Chennai Region, said this was a step towards achieving a larger mission. The hospital was able to treat many infants with support from the Tamil Nadu government and voluntary organisations. The hospital also received patients from other States and even from other countries.