Delhi doctors successfully remove rare large fungal ball from elderly patient's aortic heart valve

New Delhi: The doctors at a private hospital in the national capital successfully treated a 70-year-old male patient, with fungal endocarditis, a rare condition in which fungus had developed in the heart's aortic valve, said the hospital officials said on Tuesday.

The team of doctors, led by Dr. Udgeath Dhir, Director, and Head of Cardiothoracic and Vascular Surgery (CTVS), Fortis Hospital, managed the case and through a complex surgery, successfully extracted a 6 cm-long fungal ball from the patient's heart valve.

"This is a very rare case, sometimes found in cardiac surgery patients worldwide and chances of survival are only 50 percent," the statement from the hospital read.

The surgery took place a few months ago. Post-surgery "anti-fungal IV continued for another 45 days" under their supervision. The patient stabilized and recovered completely and he is doing well now, they said.

Interacting with reporters, the patient Suresh Chandra said he had contracted COVID-19 in May 2021 and had recovered at home.

But a few months later, Chandra said he started having persistent cough and high fever.

"I consulted various doctors. Everyone assumed it to be a post-Covid complication, and presumed it to be due to lung infection," he said, adding he has a history of aortic valve replacement.

Chandra then approached doctors at Fortis hospital where they diagnosed it as a "rare fungal infection termed infective endocarditis", authorities said.

"Prior to the surgery, the patient's heart function had dropped to 25 percent and he was in shock failure (infection in the body had compromised heart function and led to difficulty in breathing).

"The doctors performed a high-risk redo aortic valve replacement surgery to detoxify his body using special filters and by placing the patient on an artificial heart-lung machine to remove as much infection as possible," authorities said.