Doctors at Kauvery Hospital here have successfully treated a doctor from Visakhapatnam who had COVID-19 infection with 99% lung involvement.
A release said that though he was flown to Chennai to Kauvery Hospital in an air ambulance to initiate ECMO support, doctors here managed to treat him without the need for ECMO.
According to the hospital, the doctor, a prominent surgeon, was diagnosed with COVID-19 (Omicron variant) in the last week of January. He had a comorbidity of myasthenia gravis, an autoimmune disorder that caused fatigue and weakness in muscles, for which he was taking steroids and immunosuppressants.
Initial examination showed a lung involvement of 40% with no requirement for oxygen. He was put on certain medications and was discharged within five days.
He, however, developed severe difficulty in breathing and needed oxygen support within a few days of getting discharged. Further examination through CT scan showed 99% lung involvement. Despite administering high-end antibiotics, steroids and anticoagulation medicines, his condition deteriorated and the oxygen requirement kept increasing. Anticipating the need for ECMO support, he was airlifted to Chennai.
Srinivas Rajagopala, senior consultant, Interventional Pulmonology and Sleep Medicine at Kauvery Hospital, said that the doctors here recognised that there was ongoing lung damage due to poor viral control due to his over-suppressed immune system.
He said that the doctors decided not to proceed with ECMO, but reduce the dosage of antibiotics and steroids and withheld immunosuppressants temporarily to clear the body of COVID-19 infection.
Neurologists were involved to closely monitor the situation to ensure that his myasthenia gravis did not worsen. His condition began to stabilise with stable oxygen requirements. Though he had developed lung fibrosis, it was managed without anti-fibrotics as they have shown to be less effective in COVID-19 cases, the doctors said. He was discharged five weeks later after recovery, the hospital said.
Aravindan Selvaraj, co-founder and executive director of Kauvery Hospital, Chennai, congratulated the doctor for courageously fighting the disease. “We are proud to have assisted him in his fight against the illness,” he said.
