KOCHI: In a very rare surgery, lasting seven hours, doctors at VPS Lakeshore successfully removed blood clot and blocks in the heart of a 45-year-old man after stopping and making his heart motionless for 2 hours and 35 minutes with the support of heart lung machine. The patient, Muhammed Ibrahim M, a native of Manjweswaram in Kasaragod district, is fast recovering and will be discharged within a few days.
The surgery was performed by a medical team headed by renowned heart surgeon Dr M K Moosa Kunhi, senior consultant and HoD, Cardiac Surgery and Heart Transplantation, VPS Lakeshore.
Muhammed Ibrahim, who was working in Saudi Arabia, was admitted to a hospital there after he suffered heart attack. He was later brought to India and admitted to hospital in Mangalore. The angiogram performed on him at the hospital showed a lemon size blood clot in his heart’s main chamber and four other blocks. He was then referred to Dr Kunhi and brought to VPS Lakeshore.
“Developing blood clot inside the heart is a very rare complication and it is seen only in less than one per cent of heart attack cases. It is a grave situation as the blood clot can break away from the heart at any time and move straight into the brain. This can make him a lifetime coma patient. So the patient was rushed to VPS Lakeshore for bypass surgery and removed the blood clot,” Dr Kunhi. Removing blood clot from heart chamber is difficult and it is very rarely done, he said.
According to the doctor, the reason for development of blood clots can’t be explained. The situation occurs when pumping of blood to and from heart decreases following a massive heart attack. “There is no consensus among expert doctors on how to treat development of blood clot.”