Complex surgery saves life of man with hugely-swollen artery

New Delhi, July 1 (IANS) A team of doctors at the Sir Ganga Ram Hospital here have successfully performed a complex and high-risk surgery to save the life of a 30-year-old man, whose aorta (the body's main artery) had swollen to a potentially fatal size.

According to the doctors from the hospital's Institute of Vascular and Endovascular Sciences, the swelled aorta was like a huge balloon filled with blood and could have burst any time, killing the man.

The four-hour operation was carried out by a team led by the institute's chairman V.S. Bedi, who said it was extremely unlikely to see this condition in a person of this age.

Abdominal aortic aneurysm (ballooning of the main artery) is a significant source of morbidity above 50 years. Swelling is the largest risk factor for the blood vessel's rupture, with aneurysm of more than 6 cm having an annual rupture risk of 14.1 per cent.

Bedi said that they "believe this case represents one of the large abdominal aortic aneurysms in the literature and demonstrates the feasible approach for successful open repair. We were surprised to see this kind of large aneurysm in a 30 year-old-person as we see this kind of disease in 60-70 years age bracket commonly".

Aneurysms of these dimensions are rarely encountered in young patients such as this one, he added.

The operation was carried out on June 17 and two days later, the patient was shifted to post-operative ICU. On the next day, the tubes were removed from his body and he resumed normal body functions like eating, walking and sleeping without any abdominal pain.

He was shifted out of the ICU on the third day after the operation.

Given a new lease of life, he happily celebrated his birthday by cutting a cake with vascular surgery team in the hospital, a day before his discharge on the seventh day after the operation.