Royal Hospital succeeds in conducting a new qualitative operation

Muscat: A specialised medical team at the National Center for Cardiac Medicine and Surgery at the Royal Hospital succeeded for the first time in the Sultanate of Oman in extracting a bacterial mass from a patient’s heart through a catheter using the AngioVac device.

 Dr. Hatem bin Ali Al Lawati, Senior Consultant in Interventional and Structural Cardiology at the National Center for Heart Diseases and Surgery and Head of the Medical Team, said that the disease began with an infection in the blood from the dialysis catheter and developed into a bacterial mass that continued to grow inside the heart despite being treated with antibiotics, spreading to the tricuspid valve between the right atrium and right ventricle.

Al Lawati explained that the AngioVac device consists of a specialised endoscopic suction tube connected to an intravenous circuit outside the body to filter the blood of impurities and aspirated masses and re-pump it into the patient’s central circulation.

Al Lawati confirmed that the medical team succeeded in sparing the patient from heart surgery by cutting the sternum in the chest, as treatment through this device contributed to reducing the period of antibiotic treatment and eliminating the main source of infection. The operation was successful and the patient's condition is stable.

Dr. Alaa bin Hassan Al Lawati, senior consultant and head of the cardiac surgery department at the centre, Dr. Kamla bint Khalifa Al Wahaibi, consultant cardiologist and head of the cardiac laboratory for interventional imaging, and Dr. Ishaq Al Ameri, senior consultant and head of the anaesthesia department at the centre, participated in the operation.

 Several medical and technical staff also participated in the operation, including Salim Al Muqbali, interventional catheterization laboratory technician, Maria Al Balushi from the cardiac perfusion staff, and the nursing staff Ahlam Al Balushi, Ahmed Al Busaidi and Jamal Al-Muharbi.

It is noteworthy that the National Center for Cardiac Diseases and Surgery is one of the first centres in the region to provide this type of advanced catheter treatment, and it represents a qualitative and unique leap in the treatment of such cases, which are difficult to treat with usual surgical methods.