Performing surgery and intervention to save the patient. Photo: Provided by the Hospital

The lucky man whose life was saved is Tran Van V., 51 years old (Hue City), with a history of 26 years having tuberculosis.

Before that, the patient had his treatment regimen finished, but suddenly coughed up over 200ml of blood during morning exercise.

The patient was hospitalized on August 6, with acute respiratory failure due to airway blockage and acute circulation failure. Despite being resuscitated actively to stop the bleeding, the following days, the patient still coughed up blood, with high risk of death.

On August 12, the patient had emergency bronchoscopy showing a large blood clot and massive bleeding in the right upper lung lobe. After a general consultation with ICU, thoracic surgery, cardiovascular intervention, X-ray and bronchoscopy, the hospital's Board of Directors decided to intervene with pulmonary artery embolization. If that failed, the patient would have urgent pulmonary lobectomy.

On the afternoon of August 13, with the coordination between cardiologists, neurologists and cardiovascular resuscitation unit, under the direction of Prof. Dr. Pham Nhu Hiep - Director of Hue Central Hospital, the intervention was successfully carried out with the patient’s two branches of the right lung artery being embolized by coil. After 24 hours of intervention, the patient’s state was stable, without hemoptysis.

According to Dr. Ho Anh Binh, Head of the Interventional Cardiology Department - Hue Central Hospital, previously, similar cases often required emergency surgery to remove part of the lung lobe to stop the bleeding. Now, with the development of cardiovascular intervention techniques, interventions to save patients can be performed quickly and safely under DSA monitors. In addition, in the complicated situation of COVID-19 epidemic, this high-tech intervention method has been selected to both ensure safety and quickly save the patient's life. The special thing in this case is that the team has successfully intervened the pulmonary artery branches through the heart to ensure that all the detected branches had been completely blocked, minimizing the risk of recurrent hemoptysis after the intervention.

By Dong Van