Kolkata: A remarkable effort at a private hospital in the city has given a 22-year-old woman a second lease of life after a robotic procedure successfully removed two heart tumours that led to multiple debilitating strokes.The newly wed woman’s ordeal began suddenly when she lost mobility in her right arm and leg. Doctors discovered a tumour in her heart, explaining a broken fragment had travelled to her brain, obstructing blood flow. The family was advised a high-risk, open-heart surgery.Terrified by the prospect of having her chest opened, the Burdwan resident refused the operation. Over the next five months, as her family and husband desperately tried to convince her, tragedy struck again. A second stroke robbed her of her ability to speak and eat, leaving her confined to a Ryle’s tube for feeding, deeply depressed, and withered to a fragile 35 kg, while her heart’s pumping capacity plummeted to a critical 35%.On advice of a neighbour to look into advanced medical care in Kolkata, the husband took the woman to the BM Birla Heart Research Centre OPD. There, cardiothoracic surgeon Soumya Guha suggested a minimally invasive robotic alternative. “Given the patient’s refusal to visit another hospital, an initial online consultation was arranged. The clinical scene presented an extraordinary challenge: the patient was severely malnourished, her heart was failing and she was neurologically compromised from two strokes,” said Guha. Though initially reluctant, Guha and his team accepted the challenge following the family’s appeals. The complex surgery needed an array of cutting-edge medical technologies, tailored to the woman’s fragile frame. Because her blood vessels were too narrow due to her low body weight, surgeons used specialised artificial conduits to safely connect her to a heart-lung bypass machine, equipped with advanced multiple filtration modes. They also deployed near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) to monitor brain oxygenation and protect her neurological function during the bypass. It was during the surgery that the medical team discovered and extracted not one, but two distinct tumours from her heart. Following the operation, the patient underwent an intensive, multidisciplinary rehabilitation programme, including physical, psychological, speech and swallow therapies. A week later, the young woman walked out of the hospital on her own feet, having regained the ability to speak her first words and transition back to eating solid food.
