Dubai: Man who suffered chest pain during New Year's Eve event saved after 8-hour surgery

A complex surgery that lasted eight hours saved the life of a 36-year-old who suffered a dissected aorta.

During the surgery at the Dubai Hospital, the aorta was replaced and blood reperfused to other arteries in the brain, intestines, kidneys and heart.

The GCC national was attending a New Year’s Eve event, when he felt a sudden chest pain.

He was rushed to the Dubai Health Authority’s (DHA) field hospital that was set up to deal with any medical emergencies during the New Year’s Eve celebrations.

He was then transferred to Rashid Hospital’s Trauma and Emergency Centre, and then to the Dubai Hospital.

Dr Ayman Majzoub, emergency medicine specialist at Rashid Hospital, said CT scans confirmed the presence of a dissected aorta and the need for immediate surgical intervention.

He said that in a majority of such cases, the patient dies before reaching the hospital or within 24 hours after.

Dr Obaid Al Jassim, consultant and head of the Cardiothoracic Surgery Department at Dubai Hospital, said dissected aorta meant blood supply was affected to all the main organs of the body.

Dr Al Jassim said: “We first put the patient on a heart-lung machine, which is a device used in open heart surgery to support the body’s circulation and oxygenation during the surgical procedure while the heart is stopped. We then lowered the body temperature to 18 degrees to protect the patient’s brain and we did some procedures to ensure the brain receives oxygenated blood during surgery.”

He said the patient stayed in the intensive care room for 48 hours post-surgery.

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He will require regular follow-up visits and maintain a healthy lifestyle.

Dr Al Jassim said that in such cases, the probability of death increases by 5 per cent every hour without urgent medical intervention.

• Dubai