The heart was removed from the chest: a unique operation to save an AFU soldier performed in Ternopil. Photo

For the first time in Ukraine, a malignant heart tumor was successfully removed by autotransplantation in the Ternopil region. To get rid of the tumor, doctors from the Ternopil Regional Clinical Hospital removed the heart from the patient's chest.

This was reported on the Facebook page of the Department of Health of the Ternopil Regional State Administration. The operation lasted about 13 hours.

The patient was a 45-year-old soldier who was wounded at the front and lost his leg. Doctors found he had serious mitral insufficiency.

The man had a sarcoma of the posterior wall of the left atrium, which was removed by autotransplantation. During the tumor removal procedure, the patient's vital functions were supported by a heart-lung machine.

"A serviceman was sent to our department for a planned routine surgery. During the diagnosis, we saw a certain mass, which we thought was thrombotic, in the left atrium. When we started the surgery, we found a tumor. We took a histology and decided not to continue with the planned surgery because we needed to prepare for such a large-scale intervention," Volodymyr Moroz, cardiac surgeon and head of the Department of Cardiac Surgery and Transplantation at the Ternopil Regional Clinical Hospital, said.

The doctors studied scientific literature, watched videos and analyzed information available in foreign sources on this pathology. At the same time, they were preparing the patient for surgery. To access the tumor, given its size and location, the heart was removed.

"The operation took place in two stages. We took the heart out of the patient's chest, removed the parts of the tumor that remained in the chest, and formed a new posterior wall of the left atrium from the bovine pericardium, suturing all the pulmonary veins into it. The second stage is the work with the heart. The sarcoma affected the mitral valve of the heart and part of the left atrium, which were affected by sarcoma, so we removed them. After that, we restored the geometry of the left atrium with the help of bovine pericardium and installed a new mitral valve," the cardiac surgeon said.

The postoperative period was difficult. According to Volodymyr Moroz, the medical staff of the institution did everything in their power and even more to help the patient.

Currently, the patient is in a satisfactory condition and has been discharged from the hospital. He is in Kyiv with his family and is undergoing rehabilitation and specialized treatment.

Earlier, it was reported that doctors at the National Children's Specialized Hospital Okhmatdyt in Kyiv recently performed a unique bone marrow transplant for an infant. They managed to find a donor and deliver hematopoietic cells from the United States for the first time.

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