Man with rare life threatening clot in artery saved

A 32-year-old man suffering from rare life threatening clot in crucial artery that was obstructing blood flow to the intestines underwent a successful operation at a private hospital in Haryana on Friday.

The man, who hails from Chennai, was suffering from acute abdominal pain along with feeling of nausea when brought to the Columbia Asia Hospital in Gurgaon, near here.

The CT scan report revealed a clot in the Superior Mesenteric Artery (SMA), the artery that supplies blood to majority of the small intestine and right half of the large bowel.

"A complete occlusion of SMA would result in necrosis of the bowel, implying death of almost all the cells of the organ due to failure in blood supply," said Ashish Pitale, consultant (laparoscopic and general surgery) at the hospital.

A surgical removal of the necrosed bowel would leave the patient with very little bowel to digest food, leaving him to be dependent on modified nutritional supplement feeds for the rest if his life, Pitale said.

"The patient was suffering from a rare and life threatening condition which has very high mortality rate of 65 percent," he said.

The results of a CT scan were discussed with a radiologist who suggested the possibility of 80 percent occlusion of SMA. This indicated a small room for saving the bowel.

Two days later, a check angiogram suggested some resolution of the clot, but indicated a blockage of a branch of SMA.

The patient was immediately taken up to resolve the blockage using a balloon angioplasty, which is a minimally-invasive process of widening the obstructed blood vessel using a balloon catheter.

The balloon is then inflated after it reaches the targeted blockage, thereby compressing the plaque and expanding the artery wall.

"This further resulted in improvement of the symptoms at a much faster rate," said Amit Gupta, consultant (cardiology) at the hospital.

"we then undertook another check angiogram two days later. We were happy to see the results that indicated a complete dissolution of the clot along with a very good supply of the blood to all the branches supplying the intestines," added Gupta.