Due to the pathological expansion of blood vessels in the leg, the blood flow worsened and the medicine took hours. But the vascular surgeons of the St. Panteleimon Hospital of the First Medical Association of Lviv performed a rare intervention and saved the leg from amputation.
59-year-old Oleg Hnatysko from Lviv Oblast has been working as a driver all his life. Either because of sedentary work or because of excessive smoking, the man periodically suffered from leg cramps. But, he says, it was always like this: it grabbed and quickly let go. However, three weeks ago another spasm did not pass as usual. “I could only walk 20 meters. The leg is like a stone,” the man recalls.
Mr. Oleg went to the doctor, who with the help of an ultrasound examination found a violation of blood flow in the arteries of the leg. The driver immediately addressed this problem to a vascular surgeon at the St. Panteleimon Hospital. A CT scan revealed an aneurysm in the man’s leg, that is, a pathological expansion of blood vessels. In addition, there were two aneurysms: femoral and popliteal arteries with thrombosis. Both expansions had a diameter of 2.5 cm, which is three times larger than the permissible norm.
Due to the thrombosis of the popliteal artery, the blood supply in the leg deteriorated so much that it threatened amputation: it was necessary to operate immediately. In order to save the limb, vascular surgeons performed a rare intervention: doctors operated on both aneurysms at the same time. Usually, extensions are removed one after the other, however, due to acute ischemia in the patient, everything had to be done at the same time.
During the operation, surgeons first removed the femoral artery aneurysm and installed an artificial prosthesis. The next step was to remove blood clots from the popliteal artery segment. Then, in order to restore blood supply to the limb, doctors performed an autovenous femoral-popliteal shunt.
The operation lasted almost four hours and was successful. Mr. Oleg does not hide his tears of joy at the fact that the doctors managed to save his leg. What’s more, the man quit smoking and urges everyone to get rid of bad habits and take care of their health.
The man has a long rehabilitation ahead of him, he needs to develop his leg. And after that he wants to get back behind the wheel again.