Man suffering from rare medical disorder saved after 14 hour surgery in Mumbai hospital

Ismail Sheikh was like any other young man till waves of chest pain started debilitating him and slowly started drowning his dreams.

The 31-year-old had the first episode of this chest pain two years back and was put on regular pain-killing medications by local doctors who diagnosed him having a hernia and assured that it would eventually regress.

Being an insurance agent with a modest living, he tried symptomatic management with pain killers which had little or no effects.

Life kept on moving and he got married and as luck would have it, the pain aggravated every passing day making life miserable for him and his family.

The Vikhroli resident consulted different hospitals and it was finally concluded that he was suffering from a thoracoabdominal aneurysm.

A thoracoabdominal aneurysm is a rare medical disorder, where there is pathological dilation of the aortic segment, that has a tendency to expand and rupture. It has incidence of 5-10 new cases every 100,000 person-years.

Up to 80 per cent of them would eventually rupture and has at best 10-20 per cent five-year event-free survival. Being a male, an ex-smoker, and hypertensive were his risk factor as no one in the family had this history.

He has recently admitted in Sir HN Reliance Foundation Hospital’s emergency department in tremendous pain with unstable hemodynamics. Reliance foundation took charge of his medical care and assured the family of all possible assistance to take him through this arduous journey.

Because of the tortuosity of the aorta, the size of the aneurysm and his young age, open surgery was preferred than endovascular stenting.

Thoracoabdominal aneurysm also has a very high incidence of mortality and requires tremendous skill to operate. Incidence of postoperative mortality too is high.

A team of advanced cardiac surgery and gastroenterology doctors headed by Dr Anvay Mulay operated tenaciously on him for a gruelling 14 hours surgery and repaired his aneurysm.

His subsequent stay in hospital remained uneventful and was discharged on December 16 and back with his family and one and a half-year-old son.

He thanked the entire team at RFH for the care and empathy shown towards him.

On the day of discharge, Ismail said, "For two years, I couldn't work because of my ailment. I am finally free of it and wanting to get back to normal life. This wouldn't have been possible without Dr Mulay and team."