Muscat: A team of doctors at Sultan Qaboos University (SQU) Hospital has performed a rare cardiac surgery.
"The surgery, performed for the first time in the Middle East, was done on 60-year-old Amer Al Jabry, who has suffered coronary artery disease for four years and involving multiple blood vessels," said Dr. Ashok Sharma, Senior Cardiothoracic Surgeon, who led the surgical team during the procedure.
The procedure involved coronary artery bypass surgery carried out on a beating heart through a left anterior (just below the heart) Thoracotomy (the making of an incision in the chest wall) for triple vessel disease.
Dr. Sharma said that coronary artery bypass surgery performed on a beating heart on multiple vessels was routinely carried out through median Sternotomy, surgery in which a vertical (14-inch) inline incision is made along the flat chest bone.
Instead of a 14-inch vertical incision on the chest bone, the doctors made a seven-inch horizontal incision below the flat chest bone.
"The present surgery involved avoidance of a heart-lung machine," he added. The heart-lung machine is used by perfusionists to artificially pump the heart during by-pass surgery. Complications are often caused by the use of this machine, but six days after the surgery, Amer Al Jabry said he felt fine.
The other doctors involved in the medical team were Dr. Hilal Al Sabti, Head of the Cardiothoracic Surgery Unit, Dr. Suresh Chengode and Dr. Ram Narayan Rao who performed anaesthetic procedures.
