LUTH performs first minimal chest surgery on 13-day-old baby
The Lagos University Teaching Hospital, Idi-Araba, has successfully carried out the first thoracoscopy surgery on a 13-day-old baby.
The minimal access surgery was performed to unblock food particles that hindered the free flow of food in the tubes of 13-day-old, Dorcas Shola.
It was the first to be carried out in LUTH.
A thoracoscopy is a medical or surgical procedure providers use to diagnose or treat an issue in lungs, oesophagus, or thymus gland.
It is a minimally invasive surgical technique used to diagnose and treat problems in the chest.
The Chief Medical Director, LUTH, Prof. Wasiu Adeyemo, on Tuesday, during a press conference described the medical term as thoracoscopic primary repair of oesophageal atresia and tracheoesophageal fistula.
He said the patient was referred to the hospital having been diagnosed with a life-threatening health condition just 13 days after birth, adding that minimal surgery was carried out in the chest part of the baby to remove the disease.
Adeyemo said, “What we mean by Minimal Access is that you have a disease you want to remove but you must open it up through a small hole to have access to it, so you don’t have to open the patient up in a big way. The opening will be very small or minimal and lesser pain too.”
He attributed the success of the surgery to the availability of equipment provided by the Federal Government and human resources who were able to carry out the surgery.
“With the availability of state-of-the-art equipment, some of these towers we bought in the range of N60m to N80m and we have many of them in the hospital, all provided by the funding given to us by the Federal Government,” he added.
The surgeon who performed the surgery on Shola, Dr Felix Alakaloko, explained that children affected with the disease at birth always had difficulty digesting their feed due to the blockage in the oesophagus, saying lack of proper care could lead to death.
He noted that spilling breast milk from the baby’s nostrils or mouth was a symptom. Alakaloko revealed that the surgery was a herculean task.
“Operating babies is very difficult because the tube that carries food is in the chest, so that means we are going to work on the chest of a newborn child to reconnect the tube and the space is very small, so when you have to cut them open you endanger the patient as well as trying to help the patient because the patient will go through a lot of trauma,” he said.
The mother of the baby, Adeyinka Shola, said, “They try for us because this is the first of such surgery in the hospital and I am thankful to God for the success.”
