CMCH docs give new life to 75-year-old man

Coimbatore: Do not ignore abdominal pain, advise doctors at the Coimbatore Medical College Hospital (CMCH).
A 75-year-old man from Gobichettipalayam was suffering from unbearable stomach pain and pain on his left leg for four days, before a doctor advised him to do an ultrasound scan of his abdomen. The scan showed that he had a large abdominal aortic aneurysm, a condition where the aorta thins out and inflates like a balloon, which if ruptured, could have killed him.
A team of doctors performed a surgery to remove the aneurysm for the first time in CMCH on July 15.
The patient, Palanisamy, had been suffering from stomach pain, said CMCH dean Dr B Ashokan. “The severity of the pain led to a local doctor advising him to undergo a scan, which revealed the aneurysm. The abdominal aorta is the largest artery in the abdominal cavity, which supplies blood to all organs. It usually is 1.5cm thick. But Palanisamy’s aorta had thinned out and enlarged to 15cm, becoming like a balloon,” he said. “We had to carefully remove the damaged section of the aorta and replace it with a synthetic graft and sew it into place.”
Since Palanisamy’s health parameters were good and he was fit to undergo the surgery, the doctors performed an open abdominal surgery. “The whole procedure took six hours because we had to cut through the retroperitoneal layer and reach the aorta, cut out the aneurysm and replace it with a graft,” said Ashokan.
Palanisamy said a private hospital his family approached quoted Rs 10lakh for the procedure. But CMCH doctors did it for free under the Chief Minister's Comprehensive Health Insurance Scheme.
“The cost including consumables costed us only Rs 1lakh,” said the dean. “Never ignore any sudden severe pain, because an aneurysm burst can kill a person, be it in the brain, heart or abdomen.”