Man’s tooth infection nearly stops his heart

Doctors replace all four valves to save his life after infection spread through bloodstream

A22-year-old Egyptian man was saved from impending death when surgeons successfully replaced four infected valves in his heart in one of the world’s rarest surgeries.

All four of the patient’s valves had become infected after he suffered from a tooth infection last December, which spread to his heart through his bloodstream.

The man is now recovering well after the surgery, which has been performed on fewer than 20 patients worldwide, at Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi, the hospital announced in a statement yesterday.

“This kind of infection in a heart valve that a patient is born with, especially in a patient who is otherwise well, is extraordinarily rare and I have not seen it before. When brought to us, the patient was suffering from multi-organ failure and was facing impending death, so surgery was necessary to save his life,” Dr Rakesh Suri, chief executive officer and chief of thoracic and cardiovascular surgery at Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi, told Gulf News.

In January, he was transferred to Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi, where a multidisciplinary team decided to proceed with the surgery despite the low survival rate.

“During the four-hour open-heart surgery, the patient was placed on a heartlung bypass machine and his heart was stopped for only 70 minutes,” Dr Gurjyot Bajwa, a staff physician in cardiac surgery at the hospital.