King Abdullah University Hospital doctors perform rare surgery

AMMAN — Jordanian doctors at the King Abdullah University Hospital recently conducted a rare heart surgery on a 22-year-old Syrian refugee, according to a US journal.   

The American Journal for the Treatment of Blood Vascular Diseases Interventional Radiology recently published news of a medical achievement by the King Abdullah University Hospital and recorded it as a “rare medical case”, Surgeon Khaled Alawneh told The Jordan Times on Thursday.

The journal, which is internationally accredited and specialised in the vascular field, considered the medical procedure as an “advanced international achievement”.

Alawneh, who works at the hospital, said that the patient was admitted as an emergency case, “regardless of insurance and nationality”.

The operation was an endovascular repair of a delayed pseudoaneurysm of the right subclavian artery, caused by a gunshot injury that was associated with significant right brachial panplexopathy, the doctor explained.

Surgical repair is reportedly associated with a high mortality rate and is considered technically challenging, said the surgeon.

Alawneh stressed that the surgery was successful, recording a “unique achievement” for the hospital’s staff without any major side effects, noting that the patient has “recovered from all of the symptoms”.

Established in 1994 as the largest medical institution in the north of the country, serving approximately one million inhabitants from the northern and other governorates, King Abdullah University Hospital is a teaching hospital affiliated with the Jordan University of Science and Technology, according to the hospital’s website.