Specialists at St Nicholas Children’s Hospital of Lviv’s First Medical Unit performed a complex intestinal reconstruction operation on a boy from Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast who had been suffering from the consequences and limitations of cancer for 6 years.
In a few days, 11-year-old Svyatoslav Pysar will finally go to the first day of school and sit down at his desk for the first time. As a fifth grader. Due to his illness, the boy spent his entire primary school years in individual lessons either in hospital wards or at home.
5 years ago, doctors in Ivano-Frankivsk discovered a malignant tumour in Svyatoslav’s pelvis that affected his intestines and bladder. After prolonged chemotherapy, Kyiv specialists removed the tumour along with the bladder and the affected part of the intestine. The boy was fitted with two stomas – a colostomy and a urostomy – to remove his faeces. These are special artificial surgical openings on the surface of the body for the removal of faeces and urine.
Sviatoslav lived with stomas for 5 years. And recently, the boy’s mother came across the story of one of the patients at St. Nicholas Hospital who had successfully undergone intestinal reconstruction. The woman jumped at the chance to save her son from at least one stoma and turned to our specialists. They began a thorough examination of the child. The patient underwent a video endoscopy, mucosal biopsy and microflora analysis. They also performed a CT scan to make sure that the little patient was really in remission.
“When we received all the necessary examination results, we realised that we could help this child. During the surgery, we reconstructed the intestine, removed the stoma, repaired the fistula that had formed in the intestine, and restored the natural functioning of the organ,” says Oleksandr Kalinchuk, surgeon and medical director of St. Nicholas Hospital, describing the course of the surgery.
The operation lasted 4 hours and was successful. The boy has already gone home. There he is recuperating and preparing to hear his first ever class bell in a few days.