By- Sakshi Jaiswal
New Delhi, May 15,
A 34 year old female patient from Nepal was successfully operated for a life threatening complication in her brain at Artemis Hospital. The surgical procedure was complicated and the team of specialist took over 4 hours to perform the surgery.
The patient who initially had intermittent headaches ignored the symptoms but gradually developed blurry vision in both her eyes. Upon consulting an ophthalmologist, the reports showed that the intraocular pressure was increased to an extent which can damage the eye blood vessels and leave her blind. This also indicated that the pressure in the brain is also increase due to some reason. To identify the root cause of the increased eye pressure, she made a visit to the Artemis Hospital for further investigations.
“Detailed investigations revealed few swollen blood vessels in the brain and were further investigated by Angiography to identify an abnormal connection between the arteries and veins, a condition known as Arterio-Venous Fistula (AVF). Due to the wrong connections the blood was directly being pushed in to the veins at very high pressure which caused the swelling. The team immediately decided to intervene and close it in the same sitting.” Said Dr Vipul Gupta, Director, Neurointervention, Agrim institute for Neuro sciences, Artemis Hospital
She had a particularly large AVF that had caused an increased pressure in the brain which was getting transmitted to her eyes leading to deterioration of her vision. It was very important to close the fistula, but as the fistula was very close to a very large normal vein in the brain, it was important to preserve the blood flow there.
“The team decided to go through the leg blood vessels via heart in order to secure the normal veins in the brain and placed a big balloon using microcatheter. Being a very complicated and a risky procedure, the team successfully injected a material to block off the abnormal connection and preserving the normal veins.” He added
The material known as onyx is a special liquid material that is like water and solidifies immediately coming in contact with blood. Ballooning was done in the normal vein to restrict the material entering the normal blood vessels.
“Using this technique, we were able to completely close the abnormal network in the brain and achieved complete cure. Within few days the patient vision started to improve and repeated eye examinations revealed that the pressure inside the eye had become less .Our team are very confident that this patient will make good and quick recovery and she will not need any further treatment for this abnormal AVF.” Said Dr Gupta.
