Narayana Health City performed the first Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) in Bengaluru for respiratory indication in a newborn and this is the third such intervention in the country. It now plans to establish a Respiratory ECMO Centre’
A newborn child, weighing 3.2 kilos, was referred to Narayana Health City with breathing difficulty. The baby had passed meconium which is its first stool within the womb of the mother and had inhaled this meconium into its lungs. This resulted in severe breathing difficulty or Meconium Aspiration Syndrome (MAS) in the baby.
The baby was put on ventilator support immediately. As a final life-saving measure, the newborn was supported by EOMO which is the use of an artificial lung, located outside the body that puts oxygen into the blood and continuously pumps this blood into and around the body.
ECMO is a expensive treatment but in this case it was subsidized. “We have a lot of experience at Narayana with cardiac patients and now we’re extending that expertise to a second group of respiratory patients, said Dr. Rajiv Aggarwal, Senior Consultant Neonatologist & Head of the Pediatric Department at Narayana Health City.
“The only way you can set-up an ECMO is in conjunction with a cardiac centre and not in isolation”, he added.
According to medical literature, 10-15% of all neonates are born through meconium stained liqour (MSL). Around 10-15% are critically ill, with MAS. Now. 10% of newborns with MAS, despite conventional management, have fatal outcomes. Internationally, in this sub group, by using ECMO the survival rate has been shown to be over 90%.
“Narayana Health City performed more than 500 ECMO’s in the past 10 years, out of which two-thirds have been pediatric ECMOs. But all of them were for reversible heart failure, following congenital open heart surgery. This is the first time a neonate had been supported by ECMO for respiratory failure,” said Dr. Riyan Shetty, Head of Extracorporeal Life Support (ECLS), Narayana Health City.
As the ECMO is instituted using the neck vessels, the procedure is less invasive. The length of hospital stay, cost and morbidity to the newborn is less when compared to opening the chest to cannulate. This kind of expertise is brought in by Dr Sudesh Prabhu, Consultant in Pediatric Cardiac Surgery, stated the hospital.
“We have a level-4 NICU to treat extremely small babies weighing up-to 600 grams,” said Dr. Harini, Consultant Neonatologist, Narayana Health.
Narayana health city, meconium aspiration syndrome, ecmo
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