Duo successfully undergo extremely delicate surgeries

Mariecar Jara-Puyod, Senior Reporter

Two medical surgeries considered among the most delicate in the world was performed recently on an octogenarian and a two-month-old baby in the Emirate of Dubai and Sharjah respectively despite challenges due to the Novel Coronavirus pandemic.

The octogenarian can now hear and communicate after undergoing his cochlear implant surgery which was conducted while he was awake and under local anaesthesia.

And the parents of the two-month-old baby also feel relieved of worry after their child’s successfull open heart surgery.

A cochlear implant is a hearing device to stimulate the nerves of the inner ear.

The cochlear implant procedure on 80-year-old M. Marwan was the first-ever performed on a patient wide awake and normally, such surgery is with general anaesthetics, said an official of Med-El. 

Med-El is the global technology company into the research on hearing impairment/loss and development of implantables since 30 years back.

Speaking about the octogenarian’s surgery, Consultant Otolaryngology surgeon Dr Jamal Kassouma said, “Due to the complex medical condition of Mr M Marwan, we were unable to carry out the procedure under general anaesthesia. The risk was too high.”

M Marwan who had completely lost his sense of hearing in 2015 used writing, sign language and lip reading as his means of communication.

What made the surgery completed at the Al Zahra Hospital-Dubai an outstanding achievement, according to Kassouma, was that the cochlear implant made “M. Marwan gain back his hearing and comprehension in less than 30 minutes after the surgery.”

Dr Jamal Kassouma has so far carried out ‘1,600 cochlear implant surgeries.’

The “activation of the implant and audio process usually takes two to three weeks after surgery,” said the Med-El official. 

M Samer, the octogenarian’s son is very grateful. He said, “It was very emotional (for the family) when father heard us for the first time in five years. To see him able to communicate so soon is far from what we had expected.” 

Meanwhile, the two-month-old baby, weighing 3.5 kilogrammes who underwent succesfull open heart surgery was confined at the Al Qassimi Women’s and Children’s Hospital in Sharjah.

He was diagnosed with “severe heart and respiratory failure, and inability to feed naturally,” according to a press release forwarded to Gulf Today on Wednesday. 

Infants and children may go through open heart surgeries to correct congenital heart defects or diseases acquired after delivery.