Dhenkanal girl country’s youngest to get ECMO therapy for post-Covid problems

BHUBANESWAR: A 22-month-old baby girl from Dhenkanal district has become the youngest patient in the country to have successfully received extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) therapy at AIIMS Bhubaneswar for her post-covid rare lungs problems, the institute authorities said.
In ECMO therapy, a machine does the job of lungs while the lungs take rest allowing the patient to recover.The AIIMS launched the facility around two months ago on July 15.
Dr Krishna Mohan Gulla, an associate professor of paediatrics who was among the key doctors involved in treating the baby at AIIMS, said she had a rare condition called Pulmonary Alveolar Proteinosis in which proteins get accumulated in lungs.
She developed the problem in July, a month after she recovered from Covid-19 in June. It was detected after she went another hospital for her fever and breathing difficulties before being referred to AIIMS.
The only option was to wash both lungs with saline, which is technically challenging in such a sick child. An expert team of doctors was formed and the group decided to do the lung washing (whole lung lavage) by putting the child on ECMO support (artificial lungs).
“To clean the unwanted deposits in her lungs, she was put on ECMO support for 24 hours on August 30 and on ventilator support for three days after that. She improved, the lungs were washed for a second time on September 13 without ECMO support. She responded well and was discharged on Saturday,” Gulla said.
The girl would still be on one litre oxygen support for a few days at her home. She would require further follow up to ensure there is no further protein accumulation, the doctor said.
Gulla said AIIMS New Delhi has treated a three and half years old baby using ECMO earlier. All available literature shows this Odisha girl would be the youngest to have been successfully put in ECMO support.
ECMO is a costly treatment, for which many patients had to be airlifted from Bhubaneswar to Kolkata, Chennai and Hyderabad during peak of second wave in April to June. In government sector, AIIMS Bhubaneswar and SCB Medical College and Hospital Cuttack have launched ECMO in recent months.