SAVING THE LIFE OF A 29-YEAR-OLD MAN HIS STOMACH MOVED AND SETTLED IN HIS CHEST FOR 7 YEARS

Saving the Life of a 29-year-old Man His Stomach Moved and Settled in his Chest for 7 Years

Abdullah, a 29-year-old man, has had a terrible car accident seven years ago, resulted in several injuries in different parts of his body, then he began a long treatment journey and moved between several hospitals where the pain was a companion to him on this journey, he was suffering from acute abdominal pain with recurrent vomiting throughout these seven years.

Abdullah recently came to Almoosa Specialist Hospital in Al-Ahsa, where Dr. Mohammed Al-Awadhi, Gastroenterology Consultant performed several tests, which showed a rupture in the left part of the diaphragm with a large opening through which the stomach, spleen and left kidney moved to the chest cavity instead of the abdomen, where they put pressure on the left lung, that resulted in shrinkage, in addition to a strain on the heart and pushed it to the right side.

Dr. Ayman Ghoneim, Associate Consultant Cardiothoracic Surgery, who received the patient in the Department of Cardio-Thoracic Surgery, said: “We held an urgent meeting that included the General Surgery, Cardiothoracic Surgery departments at Almoosa Specialist Hospital,  for coordination to conduct major surgery to restore body organs to normal, putting in mind that the mission will not be easy because the length of time led to adhesions between the abdominal viscera and thoracic organs.

Dr. Saeed Abdul-Baqi, general surgery consultant and head of the surgical team who performed this operation said that an opening in the chest was made to remove adhesions between the stomach and the heart membrane, and between the stomach and lung and its pleural membrane, in addition to returning the organs to the normal position in the abdominal cavity and repair of the diaphragm rupture.

The surgery took almost 3 hours, and it was successful thanks be to Allah. The operation performed through one incision in the chest. After that Abdullah’s condition has improved, then he left the hospital seven days later.

Dr. Abdul Baqi concluded that the dangers of such rare cases lie in the ease of injury to the lung, heart or stomach itself, which may lead to bleeding inside the heart or bowel obstruction, which resulted from an injury caused by a car accident seven years ago that  not discovered despite his admission to several hospitals during this period, that is one of the rarest cases in the world where most similar cases detected in the first year after the accident, and the world record so far registered one case discovered after five years of the crash.