Eight hour rare surgery sees paralysed Omani walk again

2/7/2016 5:57:37 AM

(MENAFN- Muscat Daily) Muscat-

A team of specialists at the Khoula Hospital performed a rare surgery lasting eight hours helping an Omani patient who had been paralysed neck down to walk again. Dr Sharad S Rajamani senior consultant neurosurgery at Khoula Hospital and the chief surgeon said 'The Omani patient was paralysed neck down. He arrived on a stretcher.'

The 21 year old patient had suffered spinal electrocution while using his mobile phone that was plugged on for charging. Explaining the impact of such a shock Dr Rajamani said 'The shock usually travels through nerves. Electricity takes the route of least resistance and does not usually travel by arteries or veins. The easier route is the nerve which is the wiring of the body. The nerves and spinal cord are designed to carry microvolts (1 microvolt is 1/1000th of a volt) while the normal voltage in our houses is 100-200 volts.'

Dr Rajamani said 'An MRI scan showed that a huge bunch of abnormal vessels had already stressed the functioning of his spinal cord. This had been aggravated by the electrocution. This bunch of vessels are called AVM (arteriovenous malformation). We then went ahead and evaluated with a digital subtraction angiography (DSA).'

Dr Ahmed al Habsi an interventional neuro radiologist at the Khoula Hospital who performed the DSA said 'DSA is a way of taking images of arteries veins and organs of the body using complex computerised x-ray equipment. We put a catheter through the vessels in the groin and take that through into the point where that abnormality exists. This can then help us close off the main artery to the AVM.'

Dr Rajamani added 'The solution is to cut the blood supply to AVM. If you cut off the blood supply the problem dies. The vessels that are supplying the abnormality are also supplying the spinal cord. So you have to know which vessel is supplying the spinal cord and which vessel is supplying the abnormality. You have to take each one of those out. You catch the right artery and the problem is cured but if you catch the wrong one your patient will be paralysed for life. But we found that we had to deal with eight blood vessels.

'These vessels were stealing blood away from the spinal cord. With his expertise Dr Habsi could block half of them with special medical grade glue. The rest was difficult to be done with the glue and needed surgery. This reduced the risk of surgery considerably and then the surgery was performed over eight hours non-stop.'

Neurosurgeon Dr C Livingston; neurophysiologists Dr C Deepak and Dr Fatima; anaesthesists Dr Aziz Harith Dr Rashid Khan and Dr Al Ber a special team of nurses - Smitha Rani Bini Jolly and Bincy Verges assisted Dr Rajamani in the surgery.

Legal Disclaimer:
MENAFN provides the information “as is” without warranty of any kind. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this article. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the provider above.