(ANSA) – AREZZO, 08 AUG - A patient operated on Friday 2 August for a thoraco-abdominal aneurysm with a minimally invasive percutaneous technique, without surgical incisions, was able to return home the following Sunday. This is the clinical case of a 71-year-old patient in Arezzo treated by the UOC Vascular Surgery of the San Donato hospital, reported by the ASL Toscana Sud Est. “Aortic aneurysms” – explains the director of Vascular Surgery, Giorgio Ventoruzzo - “are dilations of the largest artery in our body that passes through the thorax and abdomen and from which the arteries that supply blood to the limbs, neck-head and internal organs originate. It is a potentially lethal pathology because the progressive dilation of the vessel over time can lead to its rupture, causing a catastrophic internal hemorrhage that is fatal in all untreated cases”.
These patients, Ventoruzzo continues, ”until a few years ago, were operated with traditional open surgery, only in a few national and international centers of excellence. Currently we have new generation ‘custom made’ endoprostheses available, that is, made to measure based on the patient’s anatomy, equipped with ‘branches’ or internal or external ramifications that are connected to the vessels involved in the aortic dilation through special covered stents”.
The operation is delicate. The director of Vascular Surgery states that “there can be even significant complications, but if everything goes well the next day the patient can eat, walk and after two days can return to his normal daily activities. More and more operations of this type, which we define as ‘complex aortic endovascular surgery’, are performed at S. Donato, placing our hospital on a par with the best national and international vascular surgery centers”. (ANSA).