LAGOS State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH) has successfully carried out a non-surgical repair of a hole-in-heart defect.
The procedure, known in medical parlance as Ventricular Septal Defect Closure, was carried out by experts at the hospital’s cardiac catheterization laboratory.
In a series of tweets on its Twitter handle, @LASUTHikeja, the health institution asserted that it is the first of its kind in a public tertiary health institution in Nigeria.
An interventional cardiologist at the hospital, Dr Oluwaseye Oladimeji, said with the development, “patients now have options to open heart surgery.”
The tweets read: “As a public tertiary health institution, the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH) is never resting on its oars, in its provision of quality health solutions to the residents of Lagos State, Nigeria and the world at large.
“On Tuesday, the 20th of June, 2023, at the hospital’s Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory, experts carried out a first-of-its-kind procedure called Ventricular Septal Defect Closure (VSD), in a tertiary health institution.
“According to Dr Oluwaseye Oladimeji, a Consultant Interventional Cardiologist in LASUTH, the procedure is one being performed on patients born with a hole in the heart. He revealed that ‘there are two ways to deal with holes in the heart. One is to perform an open heart surgery, while the other way, is to do a non-surgical closure’.
“Dr Oladimeji defined VSD as a type of heart procedure that closes a hole between the left and right ventricles of the heart. He said this can be done without making an incision in the chest wall and the defect can be closed using a disc-like device.
“The Consultant Cardiologist said, ‘patients who undergo this procedure can be discharged two hours after VSD closure and they can be on their way home.
“It is worthy of note that, different kinds of procedures have been carried out in LASUTH’s Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory. So far, over 120 procedures have been successfully performed since the inception of this laboratory in the second quarter of year 2022.”
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