Surgeons perform unique surgery on the heart of a wounded Ukrainian soldier
5 July 2024 08:18
Ukrainian surgeons from the Amosov National Institute of Cardiovascular Surgery performed heart surgery on 49-year-old defender Yuriy Sichka without cutting his chest. They used an intravascular access through the arm, which is a unique method that has not been practised before. This was reported by the Institute, [komesant] reports
An enemy shell pierced the soldier’s lung and stopped in his heart. In Dnipro, where the wounded man was taken, an emergency operation was performed and the man’s life was saved.
However, there was still a dangerous problem – a hole in the heart artery through which blood was getting into the heart cavity. This posed a serious threat to life.
Given the extremely high risks and complexity of the required intervention, Yuriy was taken to Kyiv, to the Amosov Institute.
A consultation of the Institute’s leading surgeons, including academicians Vasyl Lazoryshynets and Anatoliy Rudenko, as well as the head of the Emergency Endovascular Surgery Department, Serhiy Salo, decided to perform a unique operation.
It was performed without a chest incision, using intravascular access through the arm. This method did not even require general anaesthesia.
During the operation, the surgeons used an intracoronary ultrasound machine, which allowed them to see the vessel from the inside and accurately install special stent grafts – metal structures up to 5 mm in diameter that closed the damaged area of the artery.
The surgeons claim that this was the first time in the world that such an operation was performed in this way.
