Israel's Sheba Medical Center, Tel HaShomer Performs First-in-the-World, Emergency Heart Procedure
A doctor from Sheba Medical Center performed a first-in-the-world procedure to fix a potentially deadly heart aneurysm. The patient not only survived but was home in two days with a good prognosis.
RAMAT GAN, Israel, March 13, 2019 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- In an effort to save a patient with a life-threatening heart bleed, a cardiologist at Sheba Medical Center, Tel HaShomer came up with a new way to treat him.
For the first time in the world, Prof. Victor Guetta used a device designed to unblock arteries to plug the hole and stop the bleeding. The procedure saved the patient's life.
The patient came into Sheba's emergency room with a ruptured aneurysm in the left ventricle of his heart that was bleeding into his chest cavity. But because he had already undergone several heart procedures, he was not an ideal patient for another surgery – the usual solution to this problem. Heart surgery is invasive, lengthy and comes with risk of infections and other potential complications.
With the patient's consent, Prof. Guetta performed the innovative procedure to plug the hole with a device called an Amplatzer Ventricular Septal Defect Occluder. It took less than two hours and the patient was home in two days, whereas open heart surgery normally requires at least a week or more bedrest in the hospital.
"I had to come up with an alternate path. There were too many drawbacks to performing surgery on this patient. This is how it is with medicine. A device or treatment for one problem ends up working on something else. That is the power of medicine and the power of Sheba," said Prof. Guetta.
The patient's prognosis is good and continues to improve.
Professor Guetta is available for interviews to discuss this innovative new treatment and its potential impact on future cardiac patients. Please contact Kelcey Kintner at 646.391.8001 or [email protected].
About Sheba Medical Center, Tel HaShomer
Born together with Israel in 1948, Sheba Medical Center, Tel HaShomer is the largest and most comprehensive medical center in the Middle East. Sheba is the only medical center in Israel that combines an acute care hospital and a rehabilitation hospital on one campus, and it is at the forefront of medical treatments, patient care, research and education. As a university teaching hospital affiliated with the Sackler School of Medicine at Tel-Aviv University, it welcomes people from all over the world indiscriminately. To learn more, visit: http://www.eng.sheba.co.il
SOURCE Sheba Medical Center
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