Ras Al Khaimah: A UAE resident who was admitted with a life-threatening cardiac condition at a hospital has been successfully treated. The cardiology team at the RAK Hospital said that the 42-year-old Ethiopian patient had ‘thoracic aortic aneurysm’ - an abnormal widening or ballooning of the aorta, the body’s largest artery, due to weakness in the wall of the blood vessel.
The team, led by Dr Arun Goyal, performed a relatively new procedure termed ‘Endovascular Stent Grafting’, a minimally invasive and catheter-based procedure using a stent, which is a tiny metal or plastic tube that is used to hold an artery open.
Fifty per cent of patients who experience a rupture of a thoracic aortic aneurysm die before reaching the hospital. The most common cause of a thoracic aortic aneurysm is hardening of the arteries, a condition common in people with high cholesterol, long-term high blood pressure, or smokers.
