Surgeons in Lviv and Kyiv saved a man from a deadly parasite in his liver
Specialists at St. Panteleimon Hospital in Lviv, in collaboration with their colleagues from the Shalimov Institute in Kyiv, performed an extremely complex 12-hour surgery, saving the life of 55-year-old Lyubomyr from the Lviv region.
The medical team successfully removed a dangerous parasite that had completely destroyed six segments of the liver and had spread nearly to the patient’s heart.
For the medical community in the western regions of Ukraine, this is the first surgical procedure of such a high level of complexity.
Mr. Lyubomyr’s medical history began five years ago when he suddenly developed jaundice. At that time, local doctors stunned him with a devastating diagnosis—end-stage liver cancer—noting that medicine was powerless to help.
“They told me it was all over… the end. I couldn’t be saved. Basically, they sent me home to die, as harsh as that sounds. So I lived with that thought as time went by, and I was still alive. I decided to keep looking for a way to survive,” says Lyubomyr.
Later, specialists in Kyiv determined that the patient did not actually have cancer, but alveococcosis.
This is a serious disease caused by alveococcosis—a parasite that enters the body via the fecal-oral route, infects and destroys the liver and blood vessels, and then spreads to surrounding tissues and organs.
Initially, only a transplant could save the man, but after a long time on the waiting list, a compatible donor never appeared.
As the patient’s condition was rapidly deteriorating, surgeons at the Lviv Transplant Center of the First Medical Association decided to perform a radical resection of the affected areas.
At the start of the procedure, the alveococcal infection had affected 6 of the liver’s 8 segments, the major hepatic and portal veins, and had spread into the bile duct, the diaphragm, and reached the pericardium.
“We took a risk. Liver resection in Lyubomyr’s case carries extremely high risks. To minimize these, we decided to operate jointly with our esteemed colleagues from the Shalimov Institute. And for our teams, it was a very difficult reconstructive surgery,” says Oleg Guziy, head of the Department of Surgery and Bile Ducts at St. Panteleimon Hospital.
The unique operation lasted nearly 12 hours and required maximum concentration from the teams.
Oleksandr Hrynenko, head of the Department of Transplantation and Liver Surgery at the Shalimov Institute, described the complex stages and course of the procedure: “During the operation, we temporarily disconnected the liver from the blood circulation and cooled the organ with a special preservation solution to protect its tissues.”
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