------Program code: NS-081114-03727 (what's this?)
Source: CCTV.com
11-14-2008 11:41
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Wan Feng is a heart specialist at Beijing’s Jiangong Hospital. He is a former student of Professor Albert Sparr , the American surgeon known as the “father of heart valve surgery”. Wan Feng himself is famous as the first person to perform open heart surgery in China.
Little Lele was suffering from blue baby disease.
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Lele’s mother brought him to Beijing’s Jiangong Hospital to see Doctor Wan Feng.
Wan Feng’s examination of the six-month-old baby revealed that his heart was only the size of an egg yolk. He found four serious abnormalities in the little heart, and these had caused the blue colour of his skin and the difficulties he was experiencing with breathing.
The heart is the organ that pumps blood around the body. The blood flows back to the heart after it has supplied oxygen to the body.
The heart pumps blood to the right ventricle and then the blood enters the lungs through the pulmonary arteries. There, the blood takes on oxygen and becomes bright red again. However, Lele’s pulmonary arteries were so narrow that the blood couldn’t return to the lungs to have the oxygen replenished. Besides, the aorta above the heart had thickened to an unusual degree, so that it lay over the narrow pulmonary arteries. The blood supply was restricted, and this was the major cause of the baby’s oxygen deficiency.
The human heart has a left ventricle and a right ventricle.
The ventricular septum separates the two ventricles. But Lele’s ventricular septum had failed to develop properly. A large hole allowed blood from the left ventricle to flow into the right ventricle.
In such cases, without prompt treatment, one-third of patients die before they reach adulthood.
Lele was only six months old. The oxygen deficiency was causing him serious problems.
Unless an operation was performed soon to remedy his heart abnormality, Lele was in serious danger of losing his life.
But at six months old, Lele weighed only 6 kilos. It was questionable whether he was strong enough to withstand heart surgery.
Then Wan Feng found a wound on the baby, left from a previous operation.
When Lele was born, a doctor had diagnosed him with congenital heart disease. His condition was serious, and he suffered from oxygen deficiency and cyanosis. Without an operation, he was unlikely to survive.
Lele was too young to undergo surgery to correct all his heart problems. The only option for the doctors was non-intrusive surgery.
Following the first operation, Lele’s condition improved noticeably. But his heart abnormalities had not been corrected and he was not out of danger. Only major surgery held out the promise that he would enjoy full health.
Because Lele had four heart abnormalities, only major surgery could save him. The earlier operation had only alleviated his symptoms.
But the doctors were unsure, to what extent the first operation had improved the condition of the baby’s narrow pulmonary arteries. They would only find out, after they cut open his chest and saw his heart. If the results of the first operation were not good, the second operation would be adversely affected.
But the main question was; could a six-month-old baby withstand two heart operations in such a short time?
The surgeons would have to separate Lele’s breastbone. But this carried the risk of causing fatal damage to the baby’s heart.
Wan Feng organized an emergency consultation among his colleagues, to decide whether it was possible to perform the operation.
Finally, Wan Feng decided to go ahead with the operation. But his decision was initially rejected by Lele’s mother.
Wang Feng is a 1983 graduate of Hunan Medical University. In 1991, he went to the U.S. as a post-doctoral research fellow at Yale University. He also obtained a certificate in the treatment of paediatric congenital heart disease from the Medical School of Université Paris-XII Val de Marne. He is now an authority in complex paediatric congenital heart disease.
Based on his long clinical experience in child heart disease, he was able to convince Lele’s mother to agree to the operation.
And so Lele’s operation began.
Because of Lele’s low weight, using a general anaesthetic was extremely risky.
Lele’s heart condition meant that the anaesthetic would inhibit its function, with serious consequences for his well-being.
Editor:Yang
