Doctors at Pediatrics Hospital 1 in Ho Chi Minh City have successfully performed a surgery on a 23-day-old baby boy who suffered Tetralogy of Fallot, a congenital heart defect. The boy has thus become the youngest baby to have undergone such a surgery in Vietnam. The success was announced by the hospital on Sunday. The baby, who was born on March 3 to Le Thi Tam, a woman in District 12, HCMC, had suffered Tetralogy of Fallot, which involves four congenital heart abnormalities, including a large ventricular septal defect, pulmonary stenosis, right ventricular hypertrophy, and an overriding aorta, the hospital said.  The baby was admitted to the hospital 20 hours following his birth, after his body turned blue and the level of oxygen in his body dropped, said Dr. Vu Minh Phuc, head of the hospital’s Cardiovascular Department. After examining the baby and giving him a heart ultrasound scan, doctors diagnosed that he suffered Tetralogy of Fallot. The surgery was conducted on March 26 by a surgical team led by Dr. Nguyen Kinh Bang, deputy head of the hospital’s General Surgical Department. The operation was completed successfully after three hours and the baby was then put on a respirator. Three days later, he could breathe himself and was discharged from the infirmary 12 days after the surgery. Usually, children with Tetralogy of Fallot will have to undergo two surgeries, Dr. Bang said. The first surgery will be immediately performed to place a Blalock-Taussig (BT) shunt, which is an artificial tube that connects the subclavian artery to the pulmonary artery to bring blood to the lungs. Meanwhile, the second will be carried out when the baby is six to 12 months old to cure the defects of the heart, the doctor said. However, in the case of Tam’s baby, doctors found that he has a very good heart structure appropriate for a single surgery to be done, Dr. Bang said.   This is the first time doctors have carried out such an operation to treat that type of heart disease in a baby aged under one month in Vietnam, the doctor said.  In other countries, the youngest babies undergoing that surgery are between 3 and 6 months old, Dr. Phuc, adding that normally such a surgery is performed on babies of one year old and weighing nine kilograms, said Dr. Phuc. However, some health facilities in the U.S. have also conducted the surgery on newborns, he said.

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