Al Ain: Doctors at Tawam Hospital here have saved the life of a teenaged Emirati road accident victim by repairing his damaged aorta, a key blood vessel, using a rare invasive technique instead of a potentially high-risk surgery.
The medical procedure, never before undertaken in the UAE, successfully closed a tear in the damaged blood vessel without the need for an operation. The aorta is the main conductor of blood between the heart and other body organs and an operation normally involves complications and a high degree of risk, a spokesperson of the hospital said yesterday.
The 13-year-old Emirati had sustained multiple injuries to his chest in a serious car accident on Al Ain-Abu Dhabi Road.
The spokesperson said a team of specialists from the hospital's paediatric cardiology, interventional radiology, thoracic surgery, adult cardiology, and vascular surgery divisions, was involved in the procedure. The team included Dr Mohammad Hamdan, chief paediatric cardiologist, and Dr Ayman Saleh, chief of interventional radiology at the hospital.
"We went in through a small opening in the groin vessels to reach the damaged area," Dr Hamdan said.
A specially designed stent was inserted into the damaged area to close the tear and stop the blood from leaking through the aorta wall. The stent was made of a platinum frame that was coated with 24-karat gold and covered with a special tissue. A number of these stents had been brought to the hospital from the US just days prior to the procedure, Dr Hamdan said.
Dr Saleh said: "The timing was extremely fortunate in that we had only just received an adequate number of stents." Otherwise, he said, the patient would have been sent for a difficult emergency surgery to repair the tear and stopping the blood loss.
The hospital said the young patient is making a good recovery.
