A 75-year-old woman, who was unable to speak, breathe, eat and drink water, underwent successful surgery on her esophagus at AIIMS. This complex surgery has been performed by experts from the Surgical Gastroenterology and ENT departments. The woman's problem started with chest pain after eating something. Which the woman ignored. Due to which the problem took a serious form. After which the woman reached AIIMS. Where investigation revealed a rare disease called megaesophagus, which occurs in one in 10 lakhs.
What is this disease
The female patient also had achalasia cardia with megaesophagus. This is a condition in which the muscles and veins of the food pipe become inflamed. Additionally, they become hard, due to which food or water cannot reach inside. In such a situation, the patient has to face problems like chest pain and heaviness due to food stuck in the alimentary canal.
The alimentary canal had dilated four times more than normal.
The patient was having severe difficulty in breathing, inability to swallow liquids and also difficulty in speaking. Seeing this, the decision for immediate operation was taken. During this time, a CT scan done before the surgery revealed that the food pipe was massively dilated. According to doctors, it had increased to about 4 times the normal size. Due to which the respiratory tract was pressing the major veins (blood vessels) present in the heart and chest.
Food stuck in one process, problem solved in another
Dr. Vishal Gupta, Additional Professor of Surgical Gastroenterology, said that first of all an attempt was made to press a tube into the food pipe but without success. After this, Dr. Vikas Gupta and his team from the ENT department performed an emergency decompressing procedure. In which about 800 ml of food and fluid was removed from the esophagus. A few days later, in a second procedure, experts from the Department of Surgical Gastroenterology conducted a second operation to repair the food pipe. The patient is now eating normally and is completely fine.
With the timely cooperation of the radiodiagnosis and anesthesia team along with Professor Dr. Vaishali Wendeskar, Assistant Professor Dr. Pranita Mandal, Assistant Professor Dr. Sandeep Kumar and Assistant Professor Dr. Abhinav Bhagat, successful surgery was performed on the patient. Executive Director and CEO of AIIMS Bhopal, Prof. (Dr.) Ajai Singh congratulated the departments of Surgical Gastroenterology, ENT, Anesthesia and Radiodiagnosis, appreciating their team work and timely life-saving intervention.