Pediatric heart surgery
Heart surgery can be a traumatic condition for everyone. Therefore, you should consider the condition of your heart, expectations from the surgery, risk factors, and postoperative care. It can help reduce your fear.
Cardiac surgery in Delhi is performed in many government and private hospitals. There are specialists for pediatric heart surgery in Delhi as well. In children, heart defects can be at birth or manifest later. Therefore, for any defects in the child’s heart, you can find many hospitals with doctors specializing in pediatric heart surgery in Delhi.
For any surgical procedure, one has to contact a specialist cardiac surgeon. Let us look at some essential things which you should know ahead of your heart surgery:
- Common types of heart surgery
- Heart bypass surgery
This surgical procedure is performed to bypass one or more blocked or damaged arteries in the heart. The cardiac surgeon picks a healthy artery or vein from anywhere in your body and joins it to provide blood supply bypassing the blocked coronary artery. By this grafting procedure, the vein or artery bypasses the blocked part of the coronary artery and creates an alternate path for blood supply to the heart muscle. It can be done simultaneously for more than one coronary artery.
- Heart valve replacement or repair
There are several types of valves present in the heart. These valves, when damaged, need to be repaired or replaced. The doctor may repair or replace it with a biological or artificial valve. It is repaired by inserting a catheter through a large blood vessel and inflating and deflating a small balloon at the tip of the catheter, which results in the widening of the narrow valve.
- Pacemaker implantation
An irregular heartbeat is called arrhythmia. For treatment, medicines are the first option, and if medicines are not effective, there is a need for pacemaker implantation.
- Maze surgery
The cardiac surgeon makes some scars on the heart tissue to divert electrical signals through a restricted path to the lower heart chambers.
- Heart transplant
A heart transplant replaces a damaged nonworking heart with a healthy heart.
- Aneurysm repair
In an aneurysm, some bulges appear in the artery or heart wall, which are repaired with the help of a patch or graft.
These are some of the common heart-related surgical procedures.
- How to get ready for the surgery?
Talk to your doctor, and he will provide the best information to you about your condition. For example, ask him about your heart disease. Why and when to go for surgery and what to expect? Discuss post-surgical care, medications, allergies, or any other related issue. Your doctor will be the best person to instruct you on how to get ready for it.
- Things you should keep in mind ahead of your surgery
When planning your surgery, consider the duration of surgery, the recovery time, and the post-surgery rehab duration. Please do not take any medicine without the doctor’s prescriptions. For example, aspirin, a blood thinner, can lead to bleeding complications. Likewise, do not stop any medication without the doctor’s prescription. If the patient is a smoker, he must stop smoking as it is one of the leading causes of heart disease and prolongs recovery time. Similarly, you should check your blood pressure and blood sugar level, as advised by the doctor.
- Some standard tests ahead of surgery
The patient should have checked for the following:
- Complete blood count (CBC),
- Blood clotting time by Prothrombin time (PT)
- Thromboplastin time (PTT) test
- Cardiac catheterization for blockage determination
- Chest X-ray to check the shape and size of the heart and the aorta, and others
Some other tests are also recommended, like liver and kidney function tests.
- Risks related to a heart bypass surgery
Some of the common risks associated with bypass procedures include bleeding, formation of blood clots, injury to blood vessels and nerves, irregular heartbeat, heart attack, or stroke. Other side-effects include wound infection in diabetic and obese patients, breathing problems, kidney failure, and at times, death.
- Recovery after surgical procedure
In general, the hospital stay is around a week for bypass surgery. Since bypass surgery is an invasive method, it usually needs around 4 to 6 weeks for recovery. It can be longer if there are associated complications. Keep checking your wound for any swelling, redness, bleeding, etc.
Every heart-related condition does not always need surgery. Occasionally, you can manage heart problems with medications, lifestyle changes, or nonsurgical methods. For instance, catheter ablation is when small scars are made in your heart tissue to stop abnormal electrical signals from moving through the heart. Coronary angioplasty requires surgery to transplant a stent into the blocked coronary artery. Nevertheless, surgery is needed in case of heart failure, plaque removal, repairing of heart valves, abnormal heart rhythms, and defects in the aorta.
In India, many hospitals are present which specialize in cardiac surgery. The cost of cardiac surgery in Delhi varies from person to person because it also depends on the patient’s associated complications. Nevertheless, you can find the best cardiac surgery hospitals in Delhi.
