An eight-year-old boy from Nigeria who was suffering from a rare life-threatening condition underwent a surgery here in which a portion of his heart was resected in order to correct an abnormal enlargement.

The boy was suffering from a Double Chamber RV (DCRV) with Ventricular septal defect (VSD). VSD or hole in the heart, a common genetic abnormality among children, combined with DCRV -- a form of right ventricular (RV) outflow tract obstruction caused by anomalous muscular or fibromuscular bundles -- was a threat to his life. Rarely these heart abnormalities are present in the same person.

The operation was successfully performed in March under the supervision of Vishal Agarwal, Director of the Cardiology Department in Aakash Healthcare Super Speciality Hospital. The boy, who had been admitted in the hospital with severe chest pain, breathlessness and palpitation got a new lease of life and was discharged in a stable condition from the hospital on the seventh day, reads a statement from the hospital released on July 20.

Unlike a normal healthy heart, the boy was born with five chambers instead of four which further added to the complications incurred during the surgery. According to family members, initially, he was admitted to a different healthcare facility where he was diagnosed with the disease. "The boy was suffering from a heart disease called dual-chambered right ventricle (DCRV) which means that he had five chambers in the heart. DCRV accounts for 0.5 per cent of all congenital heart diseases," Agarwal said.

"Double chamber right ventricular is a condition having an abnormal strong muscular band present in right ventricle leading to abnormal two chambers in RV that divide right ventricle into proximal high pressure and distal low-pressure chambers. High pressure can lead to heart failure," he said.