Visakhapatnam: A medical feat to treat a critical brain ailment has been achieved by neurosurgeons in Vizag, by performing a brain bypass surgery.
This surgery is rare not only in India but world, with only around 160 such operations have been performed in the world in the last decade with around a dozen in India.
The medical complexity occurred in the patient due to internal bleeding in brain as a result of aneurysm occurring in the Internal Carotid Artery (ICA) which nourishes the brain with pure blood.
Aneurysm is a disorder related to blood vessels which occurs due to weakening of blood vessel walls and results in the bulging of blood vessel due to its dilation, which is similar to the sagging caused in an air filled tire tube or balloon.
This dilation results in internal bleeding. In the case of the 55-year old patient from Vizag on whom the brain bypass surgery was performed, aneurysm had developed in the ICA resulting in internal bleeding in the brain and inducing coma
The team of doctors at Indus Hospitals headed by chief neurosurgeon, Dr T. Suresh, decided to go for the complex procedure of cutting down the ICA from neck till the brain and in place of that bypassing a new blood vessel which was grafted from the patient’s leg, across the left side of the face, under the skin.
The surgery took eight hours to complete, involving a team of six doctors including four anesthesiologists headed by Dr Atchyuth. While in the bypass surgery of heart, a heart-lung machine is used to support the patient’s body while the heart is stopped, in the brain bypass surgery body temperature of the patient is brought down to about 200 Celsius for around 10 minutes so that the brain's requirements are reduced during this period and the artery supplying blood to the brain (ICA) can be chopped quickly and replaced with the bypass vessel.
The stitching of the new blood vessel called Anestomosis in the medical terminology, at the two ends, one near the brain and the other near the neck is done under a microscope which can magnify up to 24 times of the original size.
The patient who underwent the surgery has fully recovered and performing normally. Dr Suresh said, “The patient has been told to completely stop smoking, consuming alcohol and to avoid tension which are the main reasons for aneurysm along with diabetes. He has completely recovered and is under medication now.”
