KOLKATA: Somadrita Hore, a chirpy four-year-old, suddenly lost sensation in both legs when she fell from a chair recently. The symptoms lasted for just about 10 minutes.
When the girl told her parents that she had a similar fall in school a few months ago, they took her to paediatrician Dr Apurva Ghosh. It was found that the girl had a mild stroke that was triggered by a very rare disease of the brain called moyamoya. The parents were asked to take the girl to the Institute of Neuroscience Kolkata (INK).
A team of neurosurgeons operated on the girl on April 29 and the girl is back on her feet. She endured a five-hour long bypass brain surgery.
"We were petrified when we heard about the ailment. But things are fine now," said homemaker mother Sudipta.
Moyamoya is a disease of the brain in which major arteries get constricted, blocking the flow of blood. In order to compensate the blockage, a number of small collateral arteries develop over time as an alternative pathway. This myriad of tiny arteries appear like a puff of smoke on the cerebral angiogram. The name is derived from the Japanese word moya, meaning something hazy.
"It is a very rare disease known to afflict one in a million. In case of this girl, the affected arteries had shrunk by about four times and as the brain was getting just about 10% of the required blood supply. This was a case of very severe constriction for a four-year-old child," said Dr Martin Lehecka, cerebral bypass surgeon from Helsinki who operated on the girl with a team from INK.
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