On February 9, Children's Hospital 1 said that the unit had just saved a 7-year-old male patient (Dong Nai) who had cardiac arrest due to acute myocarditis.
Taking medical history, the child suddenly fainted while going to church with his mother and was taken to the emergency room at a hospital in Dong Nai. Here, the child developed arrhythmia, cardiovascular collapse and cardiac arrest. Doctors consulted with Children's Hospital 1.
The child was given electric shock, anti-arrhythmic drugs and emergency cardiac arrest for more than 20 minutes, then the heart beat again but still had ventricular arrhythmia, heart shock and was transferred to Children's Hospital 1.
Here, the red alert was activated. Doctors quickly put the child on a ventilator, used vasopressors to maintain blood pressure, antiarrhythmic drugs and immediately placed a pacemaker to maintain the baby's heart rate.
After that, the patient was transferred to the Intensive Care Unit to perform ECMO (artificial cardiopulmonary resuscitation) to save the patient's life.
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Pham Van Quang - Head of the Intensive Care - Poison Control Department of Children's Hospital 1 said that the child suffered from severe arrhythmia, cardiovascular collapse accompanied by acute pulmonary edema that threatened his life. After about 30 minutes, the patient's condition from purple and cardiovascular collapse was rosy again.
However, throughout the first week, the patient's heart beat very weakly with continuous arrhythmia, doctors had to use many cardiac drugs, antiarrhythmic drugs, electric shock and the active support of the ECMO system.
After 10 days of ECMO, the cardiovascular and organ condition has improved. The patient was discharged from ECMO, then the child was discharged from the ventilator and recovered. The patient is expected to be discharged from the hospital in the next few days.
Acute myocarditis is usually caused by a virus, in which Coxsackie virus group B is common. In Vietnam, acute myocarditis often occurs in winter-spring when the weather is cool.
Symptoms of acute myocarditis are often atypical. Initially, patients have flu-like symptoms such as mild fever, fatigue, cough, runny nose or digestive symptoms such as nausea, vomiting.
In case of severe acute myocarditis, symptoms of fatigue, fainting, shortness of breath, chest pain, cyanosis, cold hands and feet, arrhythmia, cardiovascular collapse will appear. When there are signs suspected of myocarditis, it is necessary to quickly go to the hospital for diagnosis and timely treatment.
Children with mild myocarditis are usually only monitored and treated for symptoms and will recover after 1-2 weeks. However, children with severe myocarditis need respiratory support, using cardioprotective drugs, and vasopressors to maintain heart function.
If there is arrhythmia, use additional anti-arrhythmic drugs, place a pacemaker to regulate heart frequency. The mortality rate from severe acute myocarditis is still very high, about 30 - 40%, especially in cases of acute myocarditis, the mortality rate is nearly 100%. Today, with ECMO technique, children with acute myocarditis have more chance of survival.
