Bangalore: A medical feat has been achieved by city-based Wockhardt Hospital and Heart Institute's chief cardio-vascular surgeon, Dr Vivek Jawali, who performed a unique surgery on a beating heart of a patient born with his heart on the right side of his chest.

"It is probably the very first time in the world that surgery has been performed on the beating heart of a patient with the heart on the right side, a condition called dextrocardia," Jawali told reporters on September 18.

The surgery was performed on September 3.

Jawali, who has over 13,000 heart surgeries to his credit including several rare cardiac operations, performed a triple coronary bypass surgery on the beating heart of an 80 year-old patient, Patil.

The world over only 14 patients have undergone this procedure. But all of them were operated upon using a heart-lung machine unlike this case, he said.

Describing the defect, Jawali said, "Dextrocardia is a very demanding situation for even an experienced heart surgeon who is used to the movements tuned to the heart being on the left side of the patient's chest."

The Hubli-based agriculturist, Patil who is diabetic and hypertensive and himself the father of a cardiologist complained of chest pain for the past few months even on mild exertion.

A coronary angiography of the patient revealed severe narrowing of his left main coronary artery as well as the right coronary artery.

Dr Jawali however was in for a surprise when he viewed the angiogram that revealed that the patient had a reversed heart location.

He said that the decision to operate on a beating heart was taken mainly due to the patient's long standing diabetic condition, for which stopping the heart on a heart- lung machine could have posed a high risk to his life.

Explaining the challenge in front of him and his team, Jawali said that a coronary bypass surgery on patients with dextrocardia requires tremendous dexterity, the further challenge being the patient's compromised organ functions due to diabetes.

The operation took four hours to complete and the patient was discharged after five days.

"This is an amazing feat which has changed my life. All the doctors consulted by my family were amazed at my condition" were the patient's words on discharge.

Regarding this surgery being the first of its kind in the world, Jawali said that there were some "unofficial reports" about a similar surgery on a dextrocardiac patient performed in Hamburg, Germany some years back.

However, there has been no mention of it in any of the international medical journals, he said.

Dr Jawali is planning to submit the literature of this surgery and the patient's condition to international medical journals for publication shortly.

PTI