Sassoon hosp conducts 100 mucormycosis surgeries, 83 in May alone

Pune: The 100th surgery for mucormycosis has been successfully performed at Pune’s Sassoon General Hospital on June 3

Pune: The 100th surgery for mucormycosis has been successfully performed at Pune’s Sassoon General Hospital on June 3. The hospital run by the state government has been at the forefront of the fight against not only Covid, but post-Covid mucormycosis also.

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According to the doctors who treated patients down with the black fungus at the hospital, it was found that most of these cases were found in Covid-19 recovered patients. They said that apart from steroids given during Covid treatment, the fungus easily enters the body through the nose of patients with co-morbidities (diabetes, hypertension, cancer) and low immunity. The fungus later infects the eyes and brain, causing the patient to lose sight or life.

More than 201 patients have been admitted to Sassoon hospital since the onset of mucormycosis and the 100th surgery was carried out on June 3. On an average about 7-8 new patients were being admitted to the hospital daily, according to the hospital staff.

Dr Sameer Joshi, head, ENT department, said, “To be specific, we have performed 118 mucormycosis surgeries of which 110 were of ENT alone since mucor affects the ENT first. We have reported only one death due to the black fungus till now. Most of these surgeries happened post the second wave in April, and 83 of these operations happened in May alone. We are operating 11 patients on a daily basis. As of Monday, we will have only four patients on the waiting list. This is probably the highest number of surgeries performed by any hospital in the state. However, only after three months can we say if the surgery was a success since through surgery it we remove the dead tissue and over 90% of the fungus, but 10% is still present in the body which is invisible to the naked eye. So, we continue to prescribe amphotericin even after surgery. We also have a few patients who come to us for post-operative surgery. Only two of these 118 were non-Covid mucor cases which were due to cancer.”

The mucormycosis surgeries included FESS (Functional Endoscopic Sinus Surgery) plus skull base surgery, also two craniotomy, two cancer patients and 11 patients who underwent surgery due to fungal infection in the blood vessels of the brain and four patients who underwent surgery due to fungal pus in the brain.

Most of these surgeries were performed under the government’s MJPJAY (Mahatma Jyotiba Phule Jan Arogya Yojana) scheme and also the injections required for the treatment were provided under the government scheme. As these complicated surgeries require multi specialists, a team of doctors from the hospital’s Ear, Nose and Throat (ENT), ophthalmology, medicine and anaesthesia departments performed the surgeries.

Maharashtra has declared the disease as a notifiable disease under the Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897, and so every case is recorded. As of now, the state has recorded over 5,000 mucormycosis cases since March 2020. The state government has also capped prices for the treatment of mucormycosis and suspected patients in private and charitable hospitals. It has made it mandatory for them to display the rates and explain the same to patients and their relatives.