Rare heart surgery performed for first time in Iraq’s Kirkuk

Shafaq News- Kirkuk

Doctors at Kirkuk’s Azadi Teaching Hospital successfully performed the province’s first complete pericardium removal surgery through chest bone opening on a 19-year-old patient suffering from chronic heart membrane inflammation, local health authorities said on Wednesday.

Kirkuk Health Directorate Director-General Arjan Mohammed Rashid told Shafaq News that the patient had been experiencing severe breathing difficulties caused by chronic inflammation of the heart lining before doctors decided to proceed with surgery following clinical, laboratory, and radiological examinations.

Cardiac surgeon Herman Yassin Shawani, who supervised the operation, said the procedure involved opening the sternum and fully removing the pericardium in what he described as one of the most delicate heart surgeries carried out for the first time in Kirkuk.

The surgery lasted around two and a half hours and was completed successfully, Shawani said, adding that the patient’s condition stabilized after the operation and he was later discharged from hospital in good health.