Historic surgery saves four-year-old child from life-threatening Arrhythmia

Doctors at the Aga Khan University Hospital (AKUH) in Karachi, in collaboration with a cardiac specialist from the National Institute of Cardiology (NICVD), successfully performed a life-saving operation on a 4-year-old child suffering from an irregular heartbeat (arrhythmia). This is the first operation of its kind in Pakistan, in which the heart rate was normalised by cutting the 'sympathetic nerves'. Professor Dr. Saleem Islam, Head of the Department of Surgery at AKUH, explained that the patient suffered a rare congenital disease. In this condition, changes in the patient’s ECG trigger hormonal surges that disrupt the heartbeat, sometimes leading to ventricular fibrillation, a potentially fatal state. He noted this treatment was first performed in the United States in 1970, but due to the complexity of the surgery, was not widely adopted. Advances later made it possible to perform the procedure laparoscopically through small incisions. With this breakthrough, AKUH has now joined a select group of centres globally capable of performing this complex procedure.