Man with high-risk cardiac disorder gets new lease of life

By PMA RASHEED

The Gulf Today, 29 July 2010

A SYRIAN man got a new lease of life after treatment from a rare high-risk cardiac disorder that throws most patients to the clutches of death.

On July 15, Adnan Bahaa El Din was speaking to his wife over the phone in Syria while he was alone at home in Sharjah. In a couple of minutes he felt something unusual in his chest.

When it worsened suddenly, El Din was hurriedly taken to Al Qassimi hospital, and was admitted to the emergency ward. His condition turned out to be highly serious and doctors decided to perform a surgical procedure on him.

El Din went into coma and the doctors detected that he suffered from a severe ravishment of the aorta artery inner wall.

Cardiac specialists at the hospital said that El Din suffered from a sudden and unusual high blood pressure leading to the severe cardiac disorder coupled with a heart stroke and partial paralysis caused by thrombosis.

"The case was one of the high risk and critical conditions, where about 20 per cent of the patients die immediately," remarked Dr Santosh Mathew, consultant and head of cardiology surgery, at Al Qassimi Hospital.

"El Din [underwent] an open heart surgery that lasted for more than six hours, as his disorders were diagnosed by ultrasound and CT scan," he added.

"A team consisting of seven doctors, a heart device technician and two specialist cardiac nurses performed the surgical procedures on the patient, who had blood clots on the heart with increased blood flow," noted Dr Mathew.

El Din has been working in the UAE as a teacher, after living long years in the USA.

According to Dr Mohamed Abdul Aziz, consultant cardiologist at Al Qassimi Hospital, "high blood pressure, smoking habit and obesity are the main reasons for the higher prevalence of cardiac diseases in the UAE."