Rainbow Heart Institute achieves success in rare heart disease

Hyderabad: Rainbow Children’s Heart Institute in Hyderabad has achieved a groundbreaking milestone by successfully performing one of the world’s first cases of direct fetal immunotherapy to treat immune-mediated fetal myocarditis—a rare, life-threatening condition damaging unborn babies’ hearts.

 In a key case, a 29-year-old mother with Sjögren’s syndrome (an autoimmune disorder) carried a fetus at 22 weeks showing immune-mediated cardiomyopathy, second-degree heart block, dangerously slow heart rate, and weakened pumping due to maternal antibodies crossing the placenta. Post-intervention, the fetal heart rate normalized to 150 bpm, contractility recovered dramatically, and the baby was delivered at term with normal rhythm and stable cardiac function.