Stomach implant prevents woman starving to death

Doctors help save diabetes patient in first for PE

IN A FIRST for Port Elizabeth, doctors at Netcare Greenacres Hospital have saved the life of a woman who was starving to death by implanting a pacemaker in her stomach. Specialist physician Dr Moses Jansen said the patient’s stomach could not empty itself anymore due to organ damage.

“She suffers from diabetes and her illness was not well under control,” he said.

“Many people think that diabetes is just about having high blood sugar but it is so much more than that,” he said.

He said one of the complications of diabetes was that the natural pacemaker cells in the stomach which tell the organ when to contract become damaged.

“She was eating but food did not go through to her intestines for absorption,” he said.

The patient was suffering from chronic vomiting and abdominal pain.

“As she was using insulin, her blood sugar would drop.

“This meant that she was essentially starving,” he said.

Jansen said after he saw his patient deteriorating at a rapid rate, losing the ability to walk because of muscle complications and developing dementia, he and her family were frantically looking for a solution.

Jansen said all other lines of treatment for her condition had failed.

“All the credit for this miracle must go to her family,” he said.

“They just never gave up. They fought for her.”

Eventually South African company Medtronic assisted them in obtaining permission for the implant.

The only approved use of the device at this stage is for humanitarian reasons.

Surgeon Dr David Porter performed the surgery last week.

“The gastric pacemaker is similar to the one used for hearts,” he said.

“The pacemaker is about as big as an old R1 coin. We implanted the electric leads laparoscopically and the device is implanted under the skin.”

Porter said a Medtronic representative would be following up with the patient in the next few weeks to set the pacemaker at an optimum level.

“This is a procedure to assist patients with very specific symptoms,” he said.

“The battery lasts about four years. When the battery dies we have to replace the device.”

Jansen said the improvement in his patient’s condition since the implant was remarkable.