The Galician surgeon Diego González has become a celebrity due to, among other things, the complex procedures he performs on patients from all corners of the world and which he later discloses through social networks. Thus, last week he gave an account of a new and unusual case: an operation to remove a key that had been lodged in the lung for two years of a patient.
A key in a lung
As detailed by González in a video posted on his Twitter accountthe procedure took place in Kinshasacapital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
In this place, a 14-year-old patient had aspirated two years ago a metallic key that it had lodged in his right lung, from which it had not been previously extracted. This problem, says the surgeon, made it difficult for him to breathe.
Sometimes reality is stranger than fiction. Incredible story of this 14-year-old girl who we operated on yesterday in Kinshasha, Congo. She had aspirated a key 2 years ago and it was lodged in the right lung with which she could hardly even breathe. pic.twitter.com/KT16rITicF
— Diego Gonzalez Rivas (@dgonzalezrivas) February 2, 2023
The goal, therefore, was to remove the foreign object from the patient’s lung using minimally invasive surgical techniquesso that it was not necessary to extract the lung.
Uniportal VATS, the pioneering technique created by González
To do this, the professionals made a single incision in the patient, generating a small hole through which it was possible to introduce the different surgical instruments. Using this technique, they were able to extract the already partially damaged key from inside the patient’s chest.
Subsequently, González reported that the girl recovers correctlyafter having undergone complete uniportal bronchial reconstruction surgery (through a single incision).
Precisely, the operation was possible through a technique developed by the Galician himself, called Uniportal VATS (single port thoracic video surgery) which, as its name suggests, uses video instruments to perform complex operations on the thorax through a single 3 to 5 centimeter incision, thereby reducing cost, risk and the recovery of the patient.