After more than half a century of living with a painful knee, oozing fluid every day due to war wounds, the 85-year-old man can finally walk almost normally thanks to an 8-hour vasectomy by doctors at Viet Duc Friendship Hospital.
Patient N.D. T (85 years old, Thanh Hoa) is a wounded soldier who fought in the Southern battlefield. In a battle more than 50 years ago, he was hit in the knee by a submachine gun bullet. The bullet caused the patellar bone to fly out of the joint, destroying the surrounding soft tissue.
In the harsh conditions of the battlefield, the wound was only treated sparingly. He kept his leg but could not treat it thoroughly. Since then, the old wound has always been simmering and painful, continuously oozing fluid, making walking increasingly difficult and seriously reducing the quality of life.
The family took him to many places for treatment many times, but the situation did not improve. Only when consulted by experts did the family decide to take him to Viet Duc Friendship Hospital.
The examination results made even doctors assess this as a special case. X-ray images showed that the patient's knee was no longer patellar. Besides, there was chronic patellar tendonitis due to fire qi - a very rare form of injury, existing for decades and extremely difficult to treat.
Dr. Vu Trung Truc, Deputy Head of the Department of Maxillofacial Surgery - Plastic Surgery - Cosmetic Surgery, said that to handle it thoroughly, doctors are forced to remove the entire chronic inflammatory tissue, then regenerate the missing area with tissue that has a good source of nourishment. This is a large surgery, lasting many hours and posing many risks, especially for an 85-year-old patient.
According to Dr. Truc, most patients at this age often choose to live with the disease after being explained about the risks that may occur during surgery.
The team agreed to choose the option of transferring a patch with a continuous vascular root from the thigh area to cover the injury. At the same time, prepare a second option, which is to transfer a free patch with microsurgery attachment if the situation in surgery changes.
When opening the lesion area, doctors discovered that the blood vessel system around the knee had atherosclerosis, severely deformed after many decades, making the plan to move the trough with a stem no longer feasible.
The team was forced to switch to a much more difficult technique: completely removing the tissue patch and reconnecting the small blood vessels under a microscope.
The biggest challenge lies in the patient's own blood vessel system. The atherosclerotic wall is divided into two layers, making each microsurgery stitch extremely difficult. Even a small mistake can block the vessel, leading to necrosis or even having to remove an extremity.
In the days after surgery, the patient was closely monitored for the circulation of the graft, wound care and functional recovery. Blood circulation was good, the graft was completely intact, and the inflammation that had existed for more than half a century was thoroughly treated.
Up to now, after the rehabilitation process, the patient has been able to walk almost normally, ending the days of enduring knee pain and oozing fluid for more than 50 years.
