Riverside Medical Center Inc. (RMCI) in Bacolod City has accomplished a milestone for its Department of Pediatrics, as they successfully performed a transcatheter closure of Patent Ductus Arteriosus (PDA) on 11-year-old Sunlight Pangantihon from Barangay Sagasa in Bago City.
The procedure was performed on April 15, by Dr. Judah D. Gozar, assisted by Dr. Mylah Alfeche, both pediatric interventional cardiologists and among the few in the Philippines.
This remarkable achievement happened at the new Catheterization Laboratory of RMCI.
PDA is a congenital heart defect that affects the ductus arteriosus, a blood vessel that connects the pulmonary artery to the aorta. When the ductus arteriosus does not close after birth, it causes oxygen-rich blood to circulate back to the lungs instead of going to the rest of the body.
The transcatheter closure of PDA is a minimally invasive procedure that involves placing a device in the blood vessel to block the PDA. The procedure is an alternative to traditional open-heart surgery, which requires a larger incision and longer recovery time.
Sunligth’s condition was discovered in January 2023, when an incidental finding of a murmur was heard. Her 2D echo revealed congenital heart disease, and patent ductus arteriosus, and was advised cardiac intervention.
She was endorsed as a charity case and The St. Scholastica Bacolod Alumnae Foundation Inc. provided financial assistance to procure the Memopart PDA occluder, the device used for PDA closure. The foundation congratulated the medical institution for its accomplishment through a Facebook post.
Robelyn Pangantihon, the mother of Sunlight, thanked the doctors who handled the operation as well as the support team from RMCI.
Bago City Mayor Nicholas Yulo expressed his gratitude to the foundation and the Pediatrics Department of RMCI for saving Sunlight’s life. “As we always say, may your tribe increase,” he added.
