HIV patient’s heart surgery successfully conducted

Associate Professor Nguyen Huu Uoc, head of the hospital’s Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery Department, said the 42-year-old patient was hospitalised on May 4.

The woman was infected with HIV virus in 2005 and began using antiretroviral drugs in 2015, he added.

Doctors also diagnosed that she suffered from type-A aortic aneurysm, aortic insufficiency, mitral incompetence and Marfan syndrome.

Uoc said Marfan syndrome is a genetic disorder that affects the body’s connective tissue, with 0.5% of the population suffering from this disease.

Patients with Marfan syndrome showed pathological symptoms related to the eyes and the musculoskeletal and cardiovascular systems. Cardiovascular damage is generally associated with aortic aneurysms and mitral incompetence, he said.

Type-A aortic aneurysm is serious life-threatening disease, with 3-4 patients per 100,000 people contracting the disease every year, he said.

If not provided proper treatment, only some 10% of patients with the disease can live more than one year, he said.

The surgery was conducted on May 9 by Uoc and Phung Duy Hong Son from the Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery Department and eight other doctors.

The heart surgery was believed to be complicated because the patient’s immune system was depleted due to the HIV infection, he said.

Additionally, chances of the patient contracting an infection were high, while the possibility of doctors being exposed to the HIV virus was also high, he added.

The patient, meanwhile, is still recovering. She is expected to leave hospital next week.