Doctors of Trung Vuong Hospital in HCM City’s District 10 perform endovascular intervention on a patient. (Photo: VNA)
HCM City (VNA) – Endovascular intervention, which is a minimally invasive
procedure performed in many countries in the world, is also becoming a more
common treatment in Vietnam, according to experts.
Dr
Cao Tan Phuoc, deputy director of Trung Vuong Hospital in Ho Chi Minh City’s district
10, told Vietnam News that the growing popularity of
endovascular intervention is a necessary development in the country.
Trung Vuong Hospital, for instance, is performing more endovascular
intervention to treat diseases such as hemorrhagic stroke resulting from a
weakened vessel that ruptures and bleeds into the brain.
According
to the American Stroke Association, hemorrhagic stroke accounts for about 13
percent of stroke cases.
Phuoc
said: “Endovascular intervention is the best option for old patients with
hemorrhagic stroke compared to open brain surgery.”
In
the endovascular intervention procedure, small tube called a catheter is
threaded up through a major artery and guided to the source of the bleeding to
prevent further rupture and staunch bleeding.
The
hospital’s doctors chose this method for a 81-year-old woman from the city’s Tan
Binh district who was brought in with a limited loss of consciousness on April
28.
The
tests and digital subtraction angiography (DSA) showed bleeding in the brain.
The
patient was immediately brought to the hospital’s DSA faculty within thirty
minutes, Dr Ngo Minh Tuan, the faculty’s head, said, adding that because the
patient had many different diseases including chronic obstructive pulmonary
disease.
“After
discussing the treatment for the patient, the hospital’s doctors decided that
if a surgery was performed on the patient postoperative care for her would be
serious,” Tuan said.
That
was the reason why they decided to perform a 90-minute endovascular
intervention to stop the bleeding, he added.
After
one week, the patient’s bleeding and brain swelling stopped, he said, adding
that she is getting treatment for the different diseases she had before getting
hemorrhagic stroke at the hospital.
Phuoc
said that the intervention is a more minimally invasive procedure than surgery.
This
procedure also is used to treat aneurism in leg arteries and diabetic
complications such as atherosclerosis and others, he added.
Last
week, the hospital’s doctors also performed an endovascular intervention to
treat a patient who came in coughing up blood.
“In
the past, they performed five or seven procedures of endovascular intervention
every week whereas now two or three patients receive the procedure every day,”
he said.
According
to doctors at Binh Dan Hospital in HCM City’s district 3, they have also
successfully performed this intervention among many patients.
Last
year, the intervention was performed on a 57-year-old man of district 7 with a
hepatic artery aneurysm, a rare condition which only occurs in 0.002-0.4 percent
of the population.
Dr
Nguyen Chi Phong, deputy head of the hospital’s diagnostic image ward, said the
aneurysm was in a location that was difficult to access. Endovascular
intervention was the best choice and the safest for the patient.
In
the case of late diagnosis, the aneurysm could rupture and cause death, he
added.
According
to Phuoc, early diagnosis and timely intervention are decisive factors to save
patients and provide a good quality of living without disabilities.
Hospitals
also need other well-developed departments such as the nervous system surgery
department and an anaesthetic and recovery department to provide co-ordination
for the DSA division in treatment, he added.-VNA