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Dimi Matejic comes from a family of athletes and has always liked to move. The youth years were full of training and games with Mölndal Hockey. Due to the pandemic, she currently cancels her tennis and regular gym visits, something she never had to do due to the serious heart defect she was born with.
The Gothenburger is an example of the fact that more and more people born with complex heart defects can cope with it. A recent study from Sahlgrenska University Hospital in Gothenburg shows that 97 percent of children born with heart defects survive to adulthood, compared to 60 percent 40 years ago. So when Dimi was born in 1978, the odds of survival were significantly worse.
– These weren’t bad numbers, he says after completing a work shift at the auto company and says they haven’t advised him against working during the pandemic.
Dimi Matejic was born with the heart on the right side and more back than the chest.
Photo: Veronika Ljung-Nielsen
Dimi Matejic was born with an inverted mirror heart, that is, it sits on the right side and further back than towards the chest. Furthermore, it lacks a wall between the two chambers. A complex and rare defect, which the doctors at first did not judge, could be operated on.
Instead, he medicates until he is ten years old, when he undergoes major surgery at Sahlgrenska. Oxygenation of the blood has sometimes been a problem. As an adult, he underwent another major operation and now lives with a pacemaker, which helps the heart beat at the proper rate.
– Honestly, I don’t think about that, says Dimi Matejic.
He has been treated with electrical conversions for some time, but plays down the problems caused by his failing heart.
– There are those who are worse than me, he says.
Zacharias Mandalenakis, Chief Physician of the GUCH (Adult Congenital Heart Disease) center at Sahlgrenska / Östra Hospital and associate professor at the University of Gothenburg.
Photo: Sahlgrenska
About one in 100 children you are born with some kind of heart defect. Therefore, it is the most common malformation in newborns.
Zacharias Mandalenakis, chief physician of the GUCH (Adult Congenital Heart Disease) Center at Sahlgrenska / Östra Hospital and associate professor at the University of Gothenburg, is the study group leader. With the help of the patient registry, the survival of 64,000 children from birth to 18 years was examined.
Researchers may show a sharp increase in survival for children born in the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s. As early as 2010, the figure was 97 percent and has been stable ever since.
– We have a category of patients that used to be almost non-existent because children died before they had time to reach adulthood, says Mandalenakis.
He believes that several factors, such as better diagnostics, technology, intensive care and surgery, have collaborated and contributed to making Sweden one of the countries with the highest survival rate in the world.
Safer diagnosis and better surgery mean that the chance of surviving congenital heart defects has increased dramatically in the last 40 years.
Photo: Veronika Ljung-Nielsen
The study shows that there has been a special improvement in children with complex malformations, for example, the so-called unicameral heart, where the patient is operated on in several stages. According to Zacharias Mandalenakis, today all types of congenital heart defects can be operated.
– The problem is that there are 50 different diagnoses of congenital heart disease and at least 1,500 different combinations. Sometimes it is simple, but sometimes it becomes much more complex, says Zacharias Mandalenakis, who believes that the concentration of congenital surgery in the hospitals of Gothenburg and Lund has created a great experience among doctors and has allowed to reduce complications during operations. .
The researchers will now continue a national study of patients with only one functioning heart chamber. Mandalenakis believes that there is still room for improvement, especially when it comes to complex heart defects.
It points out that patients with congenital heart defects during adulthood are at clearly higher risk of developing other diseases such as atrial fibrillation, heart attack and stroke, but that most of those born with the malformation will live normal lives.
Dimi Matejic counts that when his heart defect was discovered, his Serbian parents wondered if the son would be operated on in the United States, Great Britain or Sweden. He says he is happy with his choice and that he was able to grow up in a country with world-class heart surgery.
Today he goes to medical check-ups twice a year and hopes for a long life.
– Considering the heart defect I have, I think I’ve done a lot, he says.
