Hungarian doctor saved a life in Ghana doing the first intradural aneurysm surgery in the country

Dr István Lázár studied and worked together with a Ghanaian doctor, Alex, in Hungary, and they remained good friends even after the latter returned to Ghana in 2000. Now, a 66-year-old Ghanaian woman can thank her life to their friendship.

A deadly disease

According to Csillagpont Rádió, a radio station in Miskolc, the woman suffered from intradural aneurysm which is very dangerous and requires intervention in two weeks’ time the latest. The disease can remain totally undetected for long years and is an outward bulge, likened to a bubble or balloon, caused by a localised, abnormal, weak spot on a blood vessel wall. Aneurysms are a result of a weakened blood vessel wall and may be a result of a hereditary condition or an acquired disease. This weakened blood vessel can explode because of stress or a sudden physical exertion.

Dr István Lázár, an expert of the problem using a unique surgery method, said that, unfortunately,

20 pc of the patients lose their lives

while the same pc of them have to live with permanent health damages because of intradural aneurysms. The head physician of the Interventional Radiology Department of the Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén County Hospital said that they were classmates with Alex, a radiologist from Ghana who worked in the hospital until 2000. Then, he returned home to Ghana because of personal reasons, but they kept in touch, and when Alex got married in 2003, István was his best man and vice versa, when István married a year later.

The first intradural aneurysm surgery in Ghana

Alex met a 66-year-old aneurysmatic woman in March in Accra, the capital of Ghana, who asked him whether he knew somebody who could help her. In fact, the woman was the sister of a doctor who studied in Bratislava (Slovakia) before. Then he called István, and this is how the Hungarian head physician travelled to the African country to do the required surgery because such interventions have never happened in Ghana before. Therefore, István said that he had to bring many pieces of special equipment with him, and only after some searching could they find an operating room with a more or less suitable software on its computer.