The boy from Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, was airlifted to KIMS Hospitals for ECMO therapy for severe Covid-19 infection and was on life support utilizing the efficiencies of a veno-venous ECMO for over two months.
This is said to be the longest time any patient, who was put on ECMO support, has fully recovered in the country.
“When the patient came to us his lungs were fully affected and stiff and was unable to supply oxygen to his body. With ECMO support his lung was rested and gradually healed itself and regained enough function to be able to support him,” said Dr Vijil, chief of transplant pulmonology, KIMS Heart & Lung Institute.
He added that the hospital has one of the largest and most experienced ECMO teams in the country with dedicated doctors and support staff.
The care given to the 12-year-old involved close monitoring of other organ functions, enhanced nutrition, physical rehabilitation, and advanced lung recovery manoeuvres while on the ECMO.
The doctors revealed that the challenge with children is their delicate bodies. “This critical Covid-19 illness leads to multiple comorbidities, muscle weakness caused by medications used to treat the primary condition, repeated infections in the bloodstream, and secondary infections in their airways over and above dense non-resolving pneumonia. This by far is probably the only reported case in the country of a child who was sustained on this mode of life support for over two months and has fully recovered from his infection,” a release from the hospital read.
Dr Prabhat Dutta, Chief Intensivist at the institute, said that it is really a satisfying moment to see the child, who also had myopathy caused by steroids and immunomodulating therapy for severe Covid-19, fully recovering.
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