Boy undergoes rare surgery

Abdullah Hassan Al Marzouqi, a 13-year-old Emirati boy successfully underwent a rare sickle cell anaemia surgery that involves removing the spleen without cutting open the abdomen. The surgery which happened on Sunday is the first of its kind in the UAE whereby the screen is melted through laproscopy. Traditional methods involved open splenectomy where a midline incision is done and the spleen is delivered in the direction of the incision, said Dr Khaled Khalfan Sabt Al Ali, specialist surgeon and deputy technical director at Al Qassimi hospital, who carried out the surgery. “We didn’t do any incision. The screen was melted inside and collected in an endoscopic bag and then removed through the holes from a bag,” he said. He said that after the surgery the boy was healthy enough to be discharged. The technique was better than open splenectomy which would require a child to stay for days in a hospital. He said the operation was done free of any cost as the patient was an Emirati. Dr Khaled added that it would be cost friendly even if the patient was an expatriate. Dr Mohammed Hassan consultant pediatric who carried out the surgery with Dr Khaled said the boy’s spleen required a surgery as it was about 560g which is abnormal. An adult spleen should be only between 100 to 200g. The huge spleen prevented the boy from doing any exercises making him completely weak. “He was also very pale and his haemoglobin level was about 7. After surgery you can see that he is regaining his health and colour,” he said. He said that sickle cell blood anaemia like other congenital blood diseases is now always screened in the case of babies after delivery in the UAE. This earlier screening enables doctors to effectively control the disease.