Jun 13, 2008 - 04:05:09 CDT
By the end of the year, Samantha Reich's heart will be whole.The 3-year-old Bismarck girl has a hole in her heart. The heart muscle separating the left and right atrium, which are the upper chambers of the heart, had an opening about a half-inch wide.
"We've known since she was born," said her mother, Missy Reich.
She and her husband, Aaron, hoped that it would grow closed.
The hole will heal with the help of a mesh patch that was inserted in May. St. Alexius Medical Center started offering the surgery within the last month. The technology has been available in the United States for about five years.
"Before, patients would have open heart surgery and we'd suture a patch over the defect," said Dr. Patricio Fernandez, a pediatric cardiologist at St. Alexius.
Such a surgery meant a hospital stay and pain and discomfort. Comparatively, it takes a half-hour to two hours to insert the mesh device and patients leave the hospital within 24 hours. He threaded a device, similar to the one in Samantha's heart, into a catheter and showed how it works. First, the catheter, which is a long tube, is threaded through the groin, into a vein and into the heart.
Once in the heart, the doctor lines up the device with the opening. The device is spool-shaped, with two wide ends and a thinner middle, called a waist. One end is wider than the other, to help anchor it in place while the device is opened.
Once a mesh device is inserted, patients need to be careful of impacts to the chest so that it isn't dislodged. Patients also take a baby aspirin for six months to reduce the risk of a blood clot. In about six months, tissue grows over the mesh of the device. This keeps blood from the left atrium from flowing into the right atrium when it beats.
When the congenital heart defect is left untreated, the right side of the heart can enlarge and blood pressure on the right can be higher than on the left. The size of the hole varies, and sometimes it grows together as a person ages. A person with a hole in the heart is more susceptible to heart-related conditions and stroke.
Sometimes, the defect can make a person fatigued and feel lethargic. Samantha always has been active, but the weeks leading up to her surgery, her mother noticed her starting to need to catch her breath more when she ran.
After the surgery, Samantha bounced back quickly.
"She literally ran out of the doors" of the hospital, Missy Reich said.
The only thing Samantha couldn't do after the procedure was jump on a trampoline the day after it was done, because her mom was worried it would be too much, too soon.
(Reach reporter Sara Kincaid at 250-8251 or sara.kincaid@bismarcktribune.com.)
JJ wrote on Mar 13, 2009 7:25 AM:
Janz "
BW wrote on Jun 13, 2008 1:22 PM:
Thanks to Dr. Fernandez wrote on Jun 13, 2008 9:07 AM:
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