KOCHI: A 28-year-old woman had a lease of life when doctors of Jubilee Mission Medical College Hospital in Thrissur conducted a rare aortic surgery to rectify her congenital disorder known as Marfan's Syndrome. Geetha was admitted to the hospital with breathlessness, severe pain and numbness of the right leg. Doctors diagnosed that blood circulation to the right leg was cut off due to some reason and her kidney, liver and heart functions had begun to deteriorate.
According to a hospital release, a further test revealed she had a rare congenital disorder known as Marfan's Syndrome and developed a large swelling in the major blood vessel, aorta. The condition had already damaged the aortic valve and she developed another near fatal complication called the aortic dissection. A team led by chief cardiac surgeon Dr E V John conducted an emergency surgery to improve the circulation to the right leg by bypassing blood from the left leg. On October 16, she underwent an eighthour- long surgery in which the damaged aorta, along with the valve, was replaced and the coronary arteries re-implanted.
The circulation to the brain was artificially maintained during the surgery. Marfan's Syndrome is a congenital disorder in which the patient's tissues are over-elastic and weak. This leads to various complications, aortic aneurysm and dissection being the gravest ones. In aortic dissection, the wall of the aorta is split and blood flows through the wall affecting blood circulation to vital organs. Prompt and urgent surgery is the only treatment.