HMC team performs brain surgery on child using revolutionary hybrid operating room

A team of surgeons at Hamad Medical Corporation's (HMC) Hamad General Hospital performed a complex brain surgery on a 10-year-old girl from Bahrain.

The completion of the complicated surgery is significant as it marks the first time the operation has been performed on a paediatric patient using Hamad General Hospital's hybrid operating room.

Dr Siraj Belkhair, interim head of the neurosurgery department at Hamad General Hospital, said the hybrid operating room enables real-time navigation and immediate evaluation of a procedure's success, both of which improve patient care and health outcomes.

"Our patient had experienced a brain bleed in November 2017 as a result of a congenital vascular condition in the brain that is usually diagnosed after it causes bleeding or seizure.

“She was initially treated with endovascular embolisation, which is a procedure that involves putting a catheter through the groin to reach the brain to inject a glue-like material that will occlude abnormal collections of blood vessels that causes bleeding," explained Dr Belkhair.

"Interventionists from the endovascular department injected glue material to close the arteriovenous malformation in her brain and to prevent further brain bleeding, but on follow-up angiogram, it was discovered that the arteriovenous malformation had started to open again and it was determined there was a risk of re-bleeding in her brain. We consulted with her parents and the decision was made to remove the arteriovenous malformation," added Dr Belkhair.

Dr Belkhair, who is also the programme director of HMC’s neurosurgery training programme, said the patient had a condition called cerebral arteriovenous malformation (AVM), which causes an abnormal connection between the arteries and veins in the brain.

He said Hamad General Hospital's hybrid operating room, which is the first of its kind in Qatar and one of only a few in the region, puts diagnostic imaging and radiology services next door to an operating room, allowing multistage procedures that were previously performed in separate locations and at separate times to be completed in one scheduled appointment time and location. (QNA)