A thirteen-month-old patient was successfully operated on

At the Institute for Children's Diseases (IBD) of the Clinical Center (KC), a department for mini-invasive surgery for the youngest patients was opened, where the first operation for a congenital diaphragm defect was successfully performed.

KC, it was announced from that institution, was ranked among the 10 institutions in Europe where mini-invasive video-assisted cardiac surgery is performed, which should become a standard procedure in the coming year.

They explain that, in the last 10 years, mini-invasive surgical interventions have been performed at the University Children's Clinic in Belgrade.

KC emphasizes that the operation, together with colleagues from IBD, was performed by pediatric surgery specialist Branislav Jovanović, head of laparoscopy at the University Children's Clinic in Belgrade.

"We had a 13-month-old patient who was diagnosed with a defect, i.e. the lack of the front part of the foreskin, i.e. the diaphragm. Occasionally, the intestine and part of the abdominal apron entered the defect, with the constant danger of the intestine becoming stuck and decaying. The patient had occasional respiratory infections related to the pressure of that intestine and its contents on the lungs. After preparations, we performed minimally invasive surgery. Today, instead of a large incision in the middle of the stomach or across, the patient has three small incisions of five millimeters each and several smaller puncture wounds. We also performed a plastic reconstruction of that defect so that those parts of the intestines and abdominal organs would not be drawn back into the chest," explained Jovanović.

According to KC, this type of operation is very rare, and in the last 20 to 30 years, three such operations have been performed in Tiršovova.

They also explained that the small patient, instead of a large incision, has three smaller ones of five millimeters each. According to KC, the operation was completed successfully, and the postoperative course is good and fast.

The director of the Institute for Children's Diseases, Velibor Majić, thanked his colleague for the procedure performed, with the hope that the cooperation will result in the introduction of new methods in the future.

"I would like to mention that the success of this operation would not have been complete if it were not for fellow pediatricians who prepared the child, fellow anesthesiologists, instrument operators, anesthetists who all contributed to making this procedure, which is very rare and in a classic way, known to be very demanding , takes place in the best way. I hope that we will continue our successful cooperation for the sake of the well-being of all our patients," said Majić. The author is a student of journalism at the Faculty of Political Sciences of the University of Montenegro, on internship at the independent daily "Vijesti".