Doctors from the Heart and Brain Center of Excellence in Pleven successfully operated a hemorrhage in the spinal canal

A woman from Varna, aged 54, was successfully operated for a rare hemorrhage in the spinal canal. The intervention was executed by the neurosurgeon Dr. Dimitar Haritonov in the super modern Heart and Brain Center of Excellence in Pleven.

The patient initially complained from a shoulder injury in the hospital in Varna. After the check-up, the established diagnosis was tumor in the spinal cord and the patient was advised to have an emergency surgery. Scared by the diagnosis and the quick unfolding of the events, her relatives asked for a second opinion. A second MRI was done by the precise equipment in the hospital in Pleven and it refuted the initial diagnosis. It turned out to be a large chronic epidural hemorrhage in the spinal canal- from 4th cervical to 5th thoracic vertebrae. A rare condition, caused by a light injury and by a prolonged taking of a medication used to prevent blood coagulation (Sintrom), Dr. Haritanov shared. Patients using this type of therapy should be carefully tested and evaluated and they must be brought to the normal values for blood coagulation in order to avoid blood loss on the operating table.

During the open surgery, which lasted approximately 3 hours and required a 25-30 cm incision, the hemorrhage was removed and the patient is successfully recovering now.

This medical case will be reported in the specialized literature as it is extremely rare in the medical practice.