What kind of unique heart surgery did Russian doctors perform? Novosibirsk doctors performed a unique low-traumatic heart surgery. This was the first experience in the world.
Cardiac surgeons of the National Medical Research Center named after academician E.N. Meshalkin successfully operated on a 36-year-old patient. The operation has become unique in the world of surgical practice. As part of it, a valve-sparing operation was performed with replacement of the pathological part of the aorta. Moreover, the intervention was performed through a mini-access in the intercostal space measuring 6.5 cm. It was called less traumatic. Doctors gained access to the heart, completely preserving the integrity of the sternum.
The patient was admitted with a diagnosis of insufficiency of the bicuspid aortic valve of the heart – he had incomplete closure of the valve cusps and blood flowed back from the aorta to the left ventricle.
During normal functioning, the aortic valve has three leaflets that allow blood to flow from the heart to the aorta in one direction. The bicuspid valve is considered one of the most common congenital heart defects. Surgical intervention, if available, is required only for those patients who have been found to have impaired blood flow. A patient from Novosibirsk doctors had not only aortic insufficiency, but also an enlargement of the ascending aorta.
The doctors were faced with the task of not changing the patient's quality of life, because he is only 36 years old. Anticoagulant therapy (a treatment that slows blood clotting and prevents clotting), which is usually associated with heart valve replacement, should also have been avoided. The surgeons decided to resort to reconstructive surgery, which would preserve the man's own valve. In addition, at the same time, cardiac surgeons performed the Davis operation – within its framework, the aneurysmically dilated part of the aorta was replaced with a vascular prosthesis.
Alexander Bogachev-Prokofiev, director of the Institute of Circulatory Pathology at the Meshalkin National Medical Research Center, noted that the CT scan revealed that the aorta of the male patient was displaced to the right. “This anatomical feature made it possible to avoid partial sternotomy (dissection of the sternum), while maintaining its integrity, and to perform the entire volume of interventions through the access in the second intercostal space along the anterior surface of the chest. The accumulated experience in the field of minimally invasive technologies and aortic surgery made it possible to carry out a technically complex intervention through a small 6.5 cm access, ”the doctor explained.
Of the main advantages of such a low-traumatic operation, the complete preservation of the bone structures of the sternum is called, this helps to minimize the risk of complications of an infectious nature. In addition, due to the low trauma of the process, a faster operation is expected. The patient after surgery can return to physical activity after two weeks.
In preparing the material, the following sources were used:
National Medical Research Center named after academician E.N. Meshalkin
