HCM City (VNA) - Endovascular intervention, which is a minimally invasiveprocedure performed in many countries in the world, is also becoming a morecommon treatment in Vietnam, according to experts.

DrCao Tan Phuoc, deputy director of Trung Vuong Hospital in Ho Chi Minh City’s district10, told Vietnam News that the growing popularity ofendovascular intervention is a necessary development in the country.

Trung Vuong Hospital, for instance, is performing more endovascularintervention to treat diseases such as hemorrhagic stroke resulting from aweakened vessel that ruptures and bleeds into the brain.

Accordingto the American Stroke Association, hemorrhagic stroke accounts for about 13percent of stroke cases. 

Phuocsaid: “Endovascular intervention is the best option for old patients withhemorrhagic stroke compared to open brain surgery.”

Inthe endovascular intervention procedure, small tube called a catheter isthreaded up through a major artery and guided to the source of the bleeding toprevent further rupture and staunch bleeding.

Thehospital’s doctors chose this method for a 81-year-old woman from the city’s TanBinh district who was brought in with a limited loss of consciousness on April28.

Thetests and digital subtraction angiography (DSA) showed bleeding in the brain.

Thepatient was immediately brought to the hospital’s DSA faculty within thirtyminutes, Dr Ngo Minh Tuan, the faculty’s head, said, adding that because thepatient had many different diseases including chronic obstructive pulmonarydisease.

“Afterdiscussing the treatment for the patient, the hospital’s doctors decided thatif a surgery was performed on the patient postoperative care for her would beserious,” Tuan said.

Thatwas the reason why they decided to perform a 90-minute endovascularintervention to stop the bleeding, he added.

Afterone week, the patient’s bleeding and brain swelling stopped, he said, addingthat she is getting treatment for the different diseases she had before gettinghemorrhagic stroke at the hospital.

Phuocsaid that the intervention is a more minimally invasive procedure than surgery.

Thisprocedure also is used to treat aneurism in leg arteries and diabeticcomplications such as atherosclerosis and others, he added.

Lastweek, the hospital’s doctors also performed an endovascular intervention totreat a patient who came in coughing up blood.

“Inthe past, they performed five or seven procedures of endovascular interventionevery week whereas now two or three patients receive the procedure every day,"he said.

Accordingto doctors at Binh Dan Hospital in HCM City’s district 3, they have alsosuccessfully performed this intervention among many patients.

Lastyear, the intervention was performed on a 57-year-old man of district 7 with ahepatic artery aneurysm, a rare condition which only occurs in 0.002-0.4 percentof the population.

DrNguyen Chi Phong, deputy head of the hospital’s diagnostic image ward, said theaneurysm was in a location that was difficult to access. Endovascularintervention was the best choice and the safest for the patient.

Inthe case of late diagnosis, the aneurysm could rupture and cause death, headded.

Accordingto Phuoc, early diagnosis and timely intervention are decisive factors to savepatients and provide a good quality of living without disabilities.

Hospitalsalso need other well-developed departments such as the nervous system surgerydepartment and an anaesthetic and recovery department to provide co-ordinationfor the DSA division in treatment, he added.-VNA