Instead of an open heart surgery, the man underwent a puncture in his arm of only 1 centimeter. Specialists at St. Panteleimon’s Hospital of Lviv’s First Medical Unit saved a man with coronary artery disease who was already in a pre-infarction state in the least traumatic way.
The doctors performed balloon angioplasty and stenting through intravascular access.
The patient is Ivan Bebykh, a 53-year-old resident of Lviv. Six months ago, he felt chest pain for the first time. And then again. The intervals between painful attacks were getting shorter and shorter, so the man went to the district hospital.
“I had a cardiogram done. The results showed that my heart was beating as if I had played two halves of football. But severe shortness of breath and chest pain appeared when walking or lifting weights. Probably, that’s why I neglected the follow-up examination and did not start treatment,” the man says.
Recently, on the way to work, Mr. Ivan felt sicker than ever before. So he immediately sought help from the specialists at St. Panteleimon’s Hospital. If he hadn’t done so immediately, he could have died, the doctors assure.
“It was a pre-infarction condition. This is a critical moment when a patient has such severe shortness of breath even at rest. We immediately performed a coronary angiogram and found multivessel coronary artery disease,” says Vasyl Protsko, head of the Cardiology and Invasive Therapy Department at St. Panteleimon’s Hospital.
The patient was offered coronary artery bypass grafting, which is an open heart surgery with a chest incision and a long recovery time. It is recommended for patients with multivessel lesions. However, due to the high level of trauma and lengthy rehabilitation after such an operation, Mr. Ivan categorically refused. At the same time, the man realized that without restoring the normal patency of the heart vessels, he would not live. So the specialists together with the patient decided to take a chance and try to “repair” the affected arteries using the endovascular method – to perform stenting and balloon angioplasty through a puncture in the skin.
During this minimally invasive intravascular surgery, the doctors found a total of four subocclusions, or critical narrowings. Two of the vessels were dilated with stents inserted through a one-centimeter incision in the arm. Two more with a smaller narrowing were inflated with balloons. Thus, the normal blood supply to the heart was completely restored. The patient saw everything happen with his own eyes, because he was conscious during the entire operation.
Despite all the risks, everything went well. The very next day after the surgery, Mr. Ivan was discharged. He no longer feels short of breath, can walk freely and live a full life.