Gurgaon: A 14-year-old boy from Uzbekistan underwent implantation of a left ventricular assist device, or LVAD, at a city hospital after his heart failed to pump enough blood, leading to cardiogenic shock and organ failure. The mechanical heart pump was implanted as a life-saving measure when doctors found him too unstable to wait for a donor heart. The boy had been living with a failing heart for nearly a decade. Over the past year, his condition worsened rapidly. He became breathless even at rest, was unable to walk without stopping and required repeated admissions to the paediatric cardiac ICU. In one critical episode, his heart’s reduced pumping led to shock and pushed his liver and kidneys towards failure. With no advanced treatment available in his home country and little chance of surviving a long wait for a transplant, his family brought him to the hospital about two months ago. After evaluation for a paediatric heart transplant, doctors at Artemis Hospitals decided to proceed with an LVAD as a last resort. The device was attached to the heart’s main pumping chamber and connected to the aorta, allowing oxygen-rich blood to reach vital organs. The pump sits inside the chest and is linked to an external controller and battery through a thin cable.Within days of the surgery, his condition began to stabilise. Over the following weeks, he regained strength, started walking independently and was able to climb stairs. He was later discharged from hospital and is expected to return to school while continuing medical follow-up. “This was one of the most challenging procedures we undertook,” said Aseem R Srivastava, chief of paediatric cardiac surgery at the hospital. He said the outcome depended on close coordination between surgeons, cardiologists, intensive care specialists, anaesthetists, nurses, physiotherapists and biomedical teams. According to medical experts, the case highlights gaps in paediatric cardiac care in India. A severe shortage of donor hearts, high costs of advanced devices and a limited number of specialised centres mean mechanical heart pumps are used in children only in exceptional cases. Wider access to paediatric assist devices could improve survival chances for children with end-stage heart failure who have few treatment options, they said.
