Kejriwal undergoes successful throat surgery

14 September, Bengaluru

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal was successfully operated Wednesday for a nagging throat ailment to free him of persistent cough, and his condition is stated to be in normal.

The surgery was conducted by senior experts at Narayana Health City here, and hospital sources said the surgery had been successful.

Soon after recovery, Kejriwal spoke to his family members and had few sips of water. He is expected to be recover fully in two days, although recovery of such a long standing problem will be gradual.

Doctors said Kejriwal had suffered with the throat problem for nearly 40 years and the surgery corrected an anatomical abnormality of his oral-pharyngeal and palatal area, which was causing small amounts of saliva to trickle into his air passages, whenever his nose breathing was affected by allergy or other factors.

The surgery involved correction of a significant septal spur by Dr Suhel Hasan, Head of Otto-Laryngology and the Plato-pharyngeal correction along with re-positioning the tongue base relationship by re-organisation of the chin area by Prof Dr Paul C Salins assisted by Dr Samarth Shetty and Dr Praveen Ganesh of the Department of Craniofacial Surgery at Narayana Health City here.

The aim of the correction was functional restoration rather than that of a disease, according to a statement here by the Hospital.

Prof Salins, Medical Director and Vice President of Mazumdar Shaw Medical Center at Narayana Health City made the diagnosis initially on the basis of observing the pattern of his bouts of coughing, it was confirmed by detailed computer analytics of cephalometrics, modeling simulation, also dynamic MRI and VideoFluoroscopic examinations.

According to the diagnosis, a restricted space for the movement of his tongue and an enlarged soft palate and uvula in relation to a slight increase in the volume of the tongue caused kinematic problems in function, the statement added.