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Dubai Hospital achieves rare surgical feat

DUBAI — Doctors in Dubai Hospital performed a rare surgical procedure to “repair” what they said is the longest vertical dissection (tear) ever recorded in a patient.

When 50-year-old UAE national Ghaloom Ibrahim walked into the emergency section of Dubai Hospital in the middle of the night in September, all obvious symptoms pointed to a heart attack, Dr Talib Majwal Khairullah, Consultant Interventional Cardiologist at Dubai Hospital, told Khaleej Times yesterday.

“He was, in fact, suffering from severe vertical dissection — a disease in which internal organs face the risk of tear. He was sweating and had several chest pains which all pointed to a heart attack, “ said the doctor.

“But upon investigation, we found out that the patient had extraordinary high pressure on both sides of his body, unlike on one side during a heart attack,” explained the doctor.

“A CT scan revealed that the patient had an extraordinary vertical dissection that started from the left cerebrum to his right leg. We had never seen anything like this before because the normal tears are not more than 15 centimetres long,” said the doctor, adding the mortality risk was up to 70 per cent.

The patient was kept in the ICU and given medication but there was no relief. “We formed a team of consultants who first decided that the condition was beyond surgical procedure,” said Dr Talib.

“However, the next morning, doctors decided to repair the tears using stents. Within 24 hours stents were imported from Germany as the family had decided that the procedure would be carried out in Dubai and nowhere else,” said Dr Talib.

The doctor said, “Because the tear was very close to the brain, we worked in two stages: one to save the life of the patient and second to complete the procedures if we succeeded in the first stage.”

Three long stents were initially placed in the neck and vertebrae after which the condition of the patient stabilised to a great extent.

“After two days of observation, three other stents were placed in his abdomen and leg. More stents are required, but it is an elective procedure as we feel that the dissection may close itself. After the two surgeries, the dissection was reduced to five per cent from 100 per cent,” said Dr Talib. Within another four days, the patient was allowed to go home but will visit the hospital for check-ups for another six months.

“The surgical procedure was very rare and challenging. In fact, if we are successful, which we will come to know in six months, we will be able to report this case in international medical journals as the first-ever repair of the longest dissection in a human body using stents,” said Dr Talib.