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Date: 21 May 2013
Time: 18:03
Spinal surgery first on heart transplant patient
Story posted/last updated: 29 November 2012
Birmingham surgeons have achieved what is believed to be a first for the UK, using a specialist technique to fuse the lumbar spine of a heart transplant patient in whom traditional open surgery would have been too risky.
William Brown, 62, from Nuneaton, received his new heart three years ago at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, but only six months later a separate condition meant he needed to have part of his spine fused to alleviate severe back pain.
Mr Brown’s heart transplant meant the bleeding associated with open surgery was too risky, so surgeon Nafees Hamid at the new Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham (QEHB) decided to reduce the risk to Mr Brown by carrying out a form of less invasive surgery.
This type of surgery is known as minimally invasive lumbar spine fusion and involves the insertion of a tube, through which the surgeon can insert the screws and rods required to stabilise the spine. A microscope enabled Mr Hamid to manipulate the tools through a small tube and to free the delicate spinal nerves under magnification.
“Five years ago, this was the first place in the UK to use minimally invasive spinal techniques to do such procedures and we’re the only hospital doing it in the Midlands. To the best of our knowledge it has never been used on a patient who has had a heart transplant,” Mr Hamid said.
QEHB is the first hospital in the UK to offer routine use of this technique, and Mr Hamid presented his work at the first world congress on minimally invasive spinal surgery in Hawaii two years ago. He currently teaches various courses on this subject both nationally and internationally.
“For a transplant patient like Mr Brown, this procedure reduces the stress on his body and limits tissue trauma and bleeding which means that he can go home within a few days. It is more complex but much less invasive and so better for the patient.”
Mr Brown underwent the surgery on 21 February, and was able to leave hospital just two days later. Recovery time for conventional surgery to achieve the same results would have been much longer.
Mr Brown said he was delighted with the way he had been treated during his stay at QEHB: “They’ve all been absolutely marvellous here, from the nurses to the surgeons to the cleaners.
“It’s amazing; I was in so much pain before this operation but already I can walk and don’t have any of the pain I had down my legs.
“It still hurts a bit where the operation was actually done, but I’m ready to go home already. I’ve got my life back.
“We went to Disneyland but my partner had to take me around in a wheelchair because I was too sick to walk. I couldn’t dress myself properly or stand for long. This has already made my life better, and it’s only two days since the operation!”
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