Chennai: Challenging surgery done on 69 year-old male

Chennai: A challenging endo-vascular aneurysm repair surgery was performed on 69-year-old patient diagnosed with abdominal aortic aneurysm at Fortis Malar Hospital recently.

The patient, Ananta Kumar Saha, has been experiencing pulsating mass in his abdomen for the past 20 years, and the intensity had increased over the last two months. The patient was diagnosed with abdominal aortic aneurysm and his ballooned abdominal aorta was 9 cm against the normal 1.6cm with 90 degree turns and twists at three levels, resulting in a very high chance of rupture and instant death.

An abdominal aortic aneurysm is an enlarged area in the lower part of the aorta, the major blood vessel that supplies blood to the body. Since aorta is the body’s main supplier of blood, a ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm can cause life-threatening bleeding. 

Doctors performed Endovascular Aneurysm Repair (EVAR), which is a minimally invasive procedure wherein both the femoral arteries in the thighs are opened with a very small incision and a stent graft is inserted, excluding the aneurysm thereby preventing rupture.  “Prevalence of Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm is about 5 to 16 percent in men older than 65 years. But the dilatation of blood vessels occurs earlier and will be asymptomatic in most patients. The rupture rate is 20 percent for 5 years if size is above 5.5 cms causing instantaneous death,” said Dr Balakumar S, senior vascular surgeon at Fortis Malar.