She could not eat for 6 years: Lviv doctors operated on an 8-year-old girl with a damaged esophagus

Lviv doctors operated on an 8-year-old girl with a burnt esophagus / Photo: First Medical Association of Lviv

In Lviv, a child who could not eat for six years was operated on because of an esophagus burned by detergent.

Surgeons replaced the damaged organ with a fragment of her own colon, reports the First Medical Association of Lviv.

It is noted that 8-year-old Diana from Ternopil started having problems with her esophagus when she was 11 months old. Then the girl came across a bottle of dishwashing liquid and took a few sips. Diana's mother immediately called an ambulance.

The child was taken to the hospital, where the gastrointestinal tract was washed. It turned out that the liquid managed to burn the mucous membrane of the esophagus. After almost a month of treatment for the effects of the burn, it seemed that everything was over.

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Later, however, Diana began to have problems with excessive salivation and difficulty swallowing. The doctors decided to perform an endoscopy - to examine the esophagus by inserting a thin tube into it. But it was not possible to do this - the endoscope simply did not enter.

A few days after the failed examination, Diana could no longer swallow even water. Then the doctors diagnosed post-burn cicatricial stenosis of the esophagus. The detergent burned not only the mucous membrane of the child, but also the organ itself. Due to its alkaline composition, the liquid literally seeped into his tissues. Over time, the muscles turned into a scar that squeezed the esophagus and food could no longer pass through it.

According to the doctors, the child had to come for a bouge - this is a procedure during which a special canister is injected under anesthesia, which expands the esophagus under pressure. However, over time, the procedure lost its effectiveness — it had to be performed more and more often. Meanwhile, Diana could only eat liquid food.

Before the operation, which was performed by the surgeons of St. Nicholas Hospital, the diameter of the child's esophagus narrowed to one millimeter — normally it should be 1.5 centimeters. If the intervention had not been carried out, Diana would not have been able to even drink.

«We decided to perform transthoracic colonic plastic surgery on the patient's esophagus. That is, the child's esophagus was replaced with a piece of her own large intestine. We took a fragment 26 centimeters long, carried out a transposition behind the sternum, sewed it from above to the throat, and from below to the stomach. That is, food now enters Diana's stomach through the transplanted part of the intestine, which now performs the function of the esophagus,» said surgeon Dmytro Hrytsak.

It is noted that the operation lasted 4.5 hours. Currently, the girl is recovering and is slowly starting to eat solid food. She has already tasted meat and now dreams of pizza.

We will remind, Kyiv doctors saved a boy who swallowed 20 magnets. They created five perforating holes in the child's abdominal cavity.