Patient Suffering from Frequent Mini-Strokes Successfully Underwent a Rare Brain Bypass
in Max Super Speciality Hospital, Shalimar Bagh
Nov 24 , 2022
A 67-year-old patient, suffering from very frequent mini-strokes, underwent the “superficial temporal artery to the middle cerebral artery (STMC)” bypass surgery, a rare life-saving procedure.
The cerebral bypass surgery is performed to restore, or “revascularise”, blood flow to the brain. The surgery, the brain’s equivalent to a coronary bypass in the heart, connects a blood vessel from outside the brain to a vessel inside it to reroute blood flow around a damaged or blocked artery.
The surgery was performed at Max Hospital, Shalimar Bagh. “The 67-year-old patient had a number of such mini-strokes frequently in one month. There was a stroke on the left side of the brain,” said Dr Shailesh Jain, Principal Consultant of Neuro and Spine Surgery, Max Super Speciality Hospital, Shalimar Bagh.
“The MRI of the brain, CT angiography and other investigations found that his left internal artery was totally blocked in the cervical neck area. But there was a supply from the right side,” Dr Jain noted.
The doctor further noted that this was the prime reason why the patient was having recurrent haemodynamic mini-strokes. “We did a cerebral digital subtraction angiography, which showed that there was supply from the right side, but a delay in the supply to the left side from the right side. In the brain, a delay of 4-5 seconds may develop mini-strokes. Our brain should get supply from both sides,” he said.
The patient was put on dual blood thinners for a week. But his condition didn’t improve, and the surgery was planned, which was completed in six hours.
“We planned to bypass the superficial temporal artery and connect to the internal brain middle cerebral artery so that the supply can get enhanced on the left side. There was an abundance of supply, and he started living a normal life from the second day after the surgery,” stated Dr Jain.
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