Sri Ramakrishna Hospital here has successfully removed aneurysm, a balloon like swelling in the chest of 56-year old woman.

She had back ache and left arm pain for last few months and X-ray showed a large swelling in the left side of chest, almost fully compressing the left lung. CT scan revealed a large balloon like swelling and a rupture could lead to instant death, according to a hospital statement today.

Since the patient was having continuous back pain, indicating an imminent rupture, a curative procedure had to be done urgently and surgeons decided to carry out a ‘endovascular aneurysm repair’ where a graft is inserted via the blood vessel into the groin with a small incision using image guidance technology.

The graft has markers inbuilt and is mounted on a catheter which is slowly advanced into the large artery.

Interventional radiologist Dr P Muthurajan and cardiac expert Dr S Thiagarajamurthy were in the forefront for this procedure.

The high graft price makes the advanced procedure very costly. However, the patient was eligible to the CM insurance scheme for those in the poor socio economic class, the statement added.