Gleneagles Global Health City, Chennai, has successfully treated a 58-year-old patient from Chennai who was detected with post-COVID respiratory failure. This is the first successful post-COVID respiratory failure treatment through ECMO (Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation) in Tamil Nadu.
The team of medical experts was spearheaded by Dr Govini Balasubramanian, Dr Subramanian Swaminathan, Dr Rajavel, Dr Sivasailam and Dr Suresh.
The patient was healthy and without any co-morbidities till July 2020. The patient developed fever and breathing difficulty in the month of July and underwent treatment for severe COVID-19 in a neighbourhood hospital for 14 days. He was subsequently discharged with RT-PCR negative. After a couple of weeks of COVID treatment, his blood oxygen levels continued to drop below a critical level and he was referred to Gleneagles Global Health City for progressive respiratory failure and severe lung injury.
Patient’s oxygen level during admission at the hospital was critically low and the CO2 level in the blood was 4 times higher than the normal level due to severe infection in the lungs, said Dr Govini Balasubramani, Senior Consultant – Cardiothoracic Surgery, Heart & Lung Transplantation, Gleneagles Global Health City. Despite the conventional measures like ventilator & prone ventilation support, his oxygen levels did not improve and PH level in the blood dropped to 6.688 (normal PH level should be from 7.35 to 7.45). Normally, such low PH can lead to multiple organ failure, Dr Govini added.
Due to persistent low oxygen levels despite conventional methods, the clinical team took a cautious decision to put the patient on ECMO support as it was the last option for his survival. The patient was with ECMO support for 16 days and showed gradual improvement in his oxygen levels. On the 18th day of ECMO, the patient was weaned from ECMO after his lungs started showing improvement. On the 20th day since admission, the patient became stable and was weaned off from ventilator support as well. The patient has now recovered completely and is on minimal oxygen support.
“ECMO should be reserved for those patients who are critically ill. In the current times with the COVID situation, we are seeing more and more critically ill patients. The ECMO is resource-intensive and requires clinical abilities, understanding and experience to obtain the best results. This is the first successful post-COVID respiratory failure treatment through ECMO in Tamil Nadu,” said Dr Govini.
Dr Alok Khullar, Chief Executive Officer, Gleneagles Global Health City, Chennai said, “GGHC, Chennai has been at the forefront of providing world class cutting edge medical care from routine OPD care to Multi-Organ Transplants. Since we started treating Covid 19 patients in 2020, the GGHC team has developed and implemented the best possible treatment protocols for mild Covid cases starting from Home based Covid care to severe cases requiring NIV and even ECMO. I congratulate the Doctors, Nurses & All support staff of GGHC for this outstanding achievement.”
